Ted Hughes — Six Young Men

The celluloid of a photograph holds them well – Six young men, familiar to their friends. Four decades that have faded and ochre-tinged This photograph have not wrinkled the faces or the hands. Though their cocked hats are not now fashionable, Their shoes shine. One imparts an intimate smile, One chews a grass, one lowers his eyes, bashful, One is ridiculous with cocky pride – Six months after this picture they were all dead. All are trimmed for a Sunday jaunt. I know That bilberried bank, that thick tree, that black wall, Which are there yet and not changed. From where these sit You hear the water of seven streams fall To the roarer in the bottom, and through all The leafy valley a rumouring of air go. Pictured here, their expressions listen yet, And still that valley has not changed its sound Though their faces are four decades under the ground. This one was shot in an attack and lay Calling in the wire, then this one, his best friend, Went out to bring him in and was shot too; And this one, the very moment he was warned From potting at tin-cans in no-man’s land, Fell back dead with his rifle-sights shot away. The rest, nobody knows what they came to, But come to the worst they must have done, and held it Closer than their hope; all were killed. Here see a man’s photograph, The locket of a smile, turned overnight Into the hospital of his mangled last Agony and hours; see bundled in it His mightier-than-a-man dead bulk and weight: And on this one place which keeps him alive (In his Sunday best) see fall war’s worst Thinkable flash and rending, onto his smile Forty years rotting into soil. That man’s not more alive whom you confront And shake by the hand, see hale, hear speak loud, Than any of these six celluloid smiles are, Nor prehistoric or, fabulous beast more dead; No thought so vivid as their smoking-blood: To regard this photograph might well dement, Such contradictory permanent horrors here Smile from the single exposure and shoulder out One’s own body from its instant and heat.