Aftermath

Aftermath

Have you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same--and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.

Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench--
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'

Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?

Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.

Siegfried Sassoon

v  ‘Have you forgotten yet?’ is a rhetorical question and is repeated to show that soldiers can’t forget about the war because it had such a bad effect on people.

v  Some rhyme scheme.

v  ‘Do you remember..’ is another rhetorical question and is also repeated which juxtaposes the question of have you forgotten yet but also shows that soldiers can’t forget about the war.

v  ‘dawn coming, dirty-white’ dirty-white suggests that they don’t want another day to come

v  ‘and chill with a hopeless rain’ pathetic fallacy, shows that the soldiers could feel hopeless during the war.

v  ‘corpses rotting’ many people died and bodies were just left there, death was a common occurrence

v  ‘Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads--those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?’ Shows the physical effects of war. ‘dying eyes’ personification.

v  ‘Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?’ before soldiers were excited to go to war because they thought they were doing something good for the country – patriotic, also shows that war has changed this because of the things they've experienced.