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						A Whispered Tale by Siegfried Sassoon 
						
						I’d heard fool-heroes brag of where they’d been,  With stories of the glories that they’d seen.  But you, good simple soldier, seasoned well  In woods and posts and crater-lines of hell,  Who dodge remembered ‘crumps’ with wry grimace, Endured experience in your queer, kind face,  Fatigues and vigils haunting nerve-strained eyes,  And both your brothers killed to make you wise;  You had no babbling phrases; what you said  Was like a message from the maimed and dead. But memory brought the voice I knew, whose note  Was muted when they shot you in the throat;  And still you whisper of the war, and find  Sour jokes for all those horrors left behind. 						 
						
						
						
						
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