We must be solidly indemnified.
Though all be worthy Victory which all bought,
We rulers sitting in this ancient spot
Would wrong our very selves if we forgot
The greatest glory will be theirs who fought,
Who kept this nation in integrity."
Nation?—The half-limbed readers did not chafe
But smiled at one another curiously
Like secret men who know their secret safe.
This is the thing they know and never speak,
That England one by one had fled to France
(Not many elsewhere now save under France).
Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week,
And people in whose voice real feeling rings
Say:  How they smile!  They're happy now, poor things.
23rd September 1918.
The artificiality of these posed, contrived photographs is made clear. That they ‘appear each week’ suggests they are churned out for propaganda purposes. The individuality and suffering of the young men remain ‘secret’, as in line 19, suppressed beneath their smiles.