The Send-off by Wilfred Owen

        Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way
        To the siding-shed,
        And lined the train with faces grimly gay.

        Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray
        As men's are, dead.

        Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp
        Stood staring hard,
        Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.
        Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp
        Winked to the guard.

        So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
        They were not ours:
        We never heard to which front these were sent.

        Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
        Who gave them flowers.

        Shall they return to beatings of great bells
        In wild trainloads?
        A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
        May creep back, silent, to still village wells
        Up half-known roads.