War Poetry of World War I
Charles Sorley joined the British Army at the beginning of the war in Europe. Captain Sorley served in some of the bloodiest battles of that devastating war. The effects of bearing witness to and participating in the devastation are evident in his poem “When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead.”
Captain Sorely was killed in action during the Battle of Loos on October 13, 1915. This poem was found in his kit and is believed to be one of his last poems.
A collection of his work, Marlborough and Other Poems, was published posthumously in January 1916
‘When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead’
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you’ll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto,
“Yet many a better one has died before.”
Then, scanning all the o’ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.
This poem is in the public domain.