on't they come?'). The stanza has him waiting for others to do things for him, he 'spends a few sick years', 'takes whatever pity' others choose to offer him; he is passed over by the women's attentions, as he bemoans the cold and hopes that someone will put him to bed. Return to poem 16.'Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes/Passed from him to the strong men that were whole' (L.43 & L.44) Repeating again the loss of the soldier, this time in his attractiveness to the opposite sex. 'Whole' implying that he is incomplete, less than a man. 'Ironically he is now dependent on young women to put him to bed, in contrast with his prewar virile manhood when he could expect to take women to bed' . SPP, P.215 Return to poem 17.'...Why don't they come' (L.45 & L.46) Dominic Hibberd has noted that this line can be linked to the recuiting poster of 1914, 'Will they never come?' (see 'Some Contemporary Allusions in Poems by Rosenberg, Owen and Sassoon', Notes and Queries August (1979), p.333. Several recruiting posters used the motif of linking sport to the army, and there were numerous recruiting drives at soccer matches. ...
