"Jack fell as he'd have wished," the Mother said, And folded up the telegram that told Of her son's death, "He's safe in Heaven now," She said, "And I am proud of him, poor lad. He always said he'd go—and now he's gone. He's safer than he'd ever been, I think, And nothing can be hurt. He never wrote To tell me he was wounded; I expect He thought it might distress me. I can see Him smiling as he used to, and his eyes Are just the same. Dear lad, I'm proud of him."
Then the broad, sunny parlour with its flowers And quiet old furniture, and the clock That ticked so slow, seemed like a sort of dream; And all the while the Mother's heart was cold With a despair that she must never tell. "Jack fell as he'd have wished," the Mother
She did not know the Major wrote and said That Jack was missing; she did not know the truth; She only knew the lie they'd told her son Was truer than the truth. She only knew That he was safe, and that she must be brave. And so she told the story, over and over, To all the people who came in to see, Until at last she almost came to feel That what she told was true. And all the while The clock ticked slowly in the sunny room, And the red roses in the vases smiled. This poem is a bitter critique of how families back home were fed sanitized, heroic lies about their sons' deaths. The mother clings to a fabricated story of courage and peace, while the reader understands the likely brutal, senseless reality. Sassoon, who served in the trenches, exposes the gulf between propaganda and truth. He never wrote To tell me he was