MANY readers are probably of generations familiar with a poem by Alfred Noyes: The Highwayman.
“Now learn this...., explain this.... recite this at function X”.
An example of one person’s sacrifice of their own life to save that of another...who throws away his life in the fury of a rage inspired suicidal charge? VC medal material.
Noyes was a product of his age. There is another of his poems: On the Western Front, written in 1916 after the Somme Battles. It presages the battles of the Passchendaele (third Ypres) campaign July-November 1917; extolled as a Commonwealth victory, obtained at great sacrifice.
November 11 Armistice Day observances this year will almost certainly coincide with the counting of costs of 100 years ago. 
The thrust of the poem is in paraphrased lines such as “I fund a dreadful acre of the dead,....The wings of death were hurrying overhead,,,,, Yet as I read the crosses, name by name,.... all I heard was.....”
“We who lie here,....may not ever know if you betray our hope, to make earth better for mankind...
“While you deck our graves, you shall not know how many scornful legions pass you by.”
“For we have heard you say (when we were living) that some small dream of good would ‘cost too much’.
But when the foe (or fire) struck, we have watched you giving, and seen you move the mountains with one touch.
What can be done, we know. But, have no.....”?
The poem could be taken as the prompt for John Craig’s question of September 15: “Will truth come out of the Grenfell tragedy?”
HAROLD HAZELL
Leigh Road
Bradford on Avon