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WHEN YOU SEE MILLIONS OF THE MOUTHLESS DEAD

Younger than Wilfred Owen and Rupert Brooke, Aberdeen-born Charles Hamilton Sorley was only 20 when he was killed at Loos in 1915, leaving just 37 complete poems, including this devastatingly bleak sonnet.

As an indictment of war it can surely stand comparison with the works of his better-known English contemporaries.

WHEN YOU SEE MILLIONS OF THE MOUTHLESS DEAD

When you see millions of the mouthless dead

Across your dreams in pale battalions go,

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