TO the Diggers

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 299, 22 November 1922, Page 6

TO the Diggers

HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YET? For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days, Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of the ways: And the haunted gap in your minds has nlfed with thoughts that flow Like clouds in the li,t heavens of life; and you are a man reprieved to go. Taking your peaceful share ot 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? Bo you remember the rats, and the stepch 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 GOING TO HAPPEN AGAIN?" Do you remember that hour of d*n 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 the men? Do you remember the stretcher oases lurching hack With dying eyes and lolling heads— those ashen-grey Masks of the lads who once were keen . land kind and gay? ; : HAVE YOU FORGOTTEN YET? LOOK UP AND SWEAR BY THE STARS IN THE SKY THAT YOU'LL NEVER FORGET. , „ —Siegfried Bassoon.