Trying to remember a poem I studied at school - diving me mad. Help!!

[goreousgirl]

Not really the right topic - but hey ho!

I remember studying a poem at school and started telling my daughter about it - but now am unable to find it!!

I THOUGHT it was TS Eliot. It was about soldiers going t war. I remember there was steam coming from a horse on a cold night, and the poet asked something like 'will they return to the sound of bells?'

I've searched so many different ways, and keep drawing a blank. Any teachers able to help me please?...

its not any of Siegfried Sassons (sp!) is it?

Along FarTooShy's lines, Wilfred Owen? Or any of those WW1 poets?

Are you thinking of Wilfred Owen's Anthem for doomed youth?

Are you thinking of Wilfred Owen's Anthem for doomed youth?

nothing in there about horses though...

I agree, it's going to be Anthem for Doomed Youth.
"What Passing Bells for those who die as cattle?"

Could that be the horses reference? My brain would probably just remember 'animal' because of the word cattle.

Is it Wilfred Owen - The Send Off

Nothing about horses in it? But it is about soldiers going off to war on trains (steam??)

users.fulladsl.be/spb1667/cultural/owen/the-send-off.html

T S Eliot's Prelude has 'the lonely cab-horse steams and stamps'

Prelude

but nothing about going to war ...

Fab poem, though.

Thank you all so much for posting!! Sorry for the delay. Yes, Fairycctaleending, I saw Prelude - and this is why I'm convinced it's TS Eliot - the words all sound familiar. I'm starting to wonder whether, over time I have remembered it incorrectly, and perhaps mingled the poems and created my own version?! I'm off to look at the other suggestions. If I can't discover it over the next week, I'm going to write what I remember, and see if I get 'had' for copywright infringement. At least that way, I'll find out who wrote it!

OK, I think after all that, it might be Wilfred Owen , but I think I have muddled it with Prelude by TS Eliot as well. If nothing else, I feel I have rediscovered poetry, as a result of it being on the curriculum at my daughters school. Good has come of it!!
Thanks again!

I immediately thought The Send Off. Used to teach it for OCR GCSE board.

Grim stuff.

The Send‑Off
Language: English

Down the close, darkening lanes they sang their way
To the siding-shed,
And lined the train with faces grimly gay.
Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray
As men's are, dead.

Dull porters watched them, and a casual tramp
Stood staring hard,
Sorry to miss them from the upland camp.
Then, unmoved, signals nodded, and a lamp
Winked to the guard.

So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
They were not ours:
We never heard to which front these were sent.
Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
Who gave them flowers.

*Shall we return to beatings of great bells
In wild train-loads? A few, a few, too few for drums and yells,
May creep back, silent, to village wells
Up half-known roads.

*OK this is definitely tthe bit I remember!! Learnt the word 'rhetorical'

Thank you Raven. Definitely this and TS Eliot getting muddled up then!

I can sleep now - and give my poor daughter nightmares tomorrow!!