Poems: Smile, Smile, Smile by Wilfred Owen

Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned / Yesterday's Mail; the casualties (typed small) / And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul. / Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned; / For, said the paper, "When this war is done / The men's first instinct will be making homes. / Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes, / It being certain war has just begun. / Peace would do wrong to our undying dead, -- / The sons we offered might regret they died / If we got nothing lasting in their stead. / We must be solidly indemnified. / Though all be worthy Victory which all bought, / We rulers sitting in this ancient spot / Would wrong our very selves if we forgot / The greatest glory will be theirs who fought, / Who kept this nation in integrity." / Nation? -- The half-limbed readers did not chafe / But smiled at one another curiously / Like secret men who know their secret safe. / This is the thing they know and never speak, / That England one by one had fled to France / (Not many elsewhere now save under France). / Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week, / And people in whose voice real feeling rings / Say: How they smile! They're happy now, poor things.