Have you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Note the repetition of “Have you forgotten yet?” in lines 1, 9, and 26. The stanzas that contain these lines are directed at the reader, and reference civilian life. That sets the reader in the post war civilian role. The question itself is rhetorical; he hopes that you won’t forget, but knows that you will. The stanzas in the middle describe his war experience, which was radically different from what the civilian populace would have lived through. This juxtaposition highlights again the differing experiences of the First World War, and the disconnect that existed at the time. There were no embedded reporters, and all the news was second-hand and government censored.
Aftermath