The selection of poems, both familiar and less so, provides an illuminating context both for the bitter denunciation of Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est" and for Katherine Tynan's portrayal of the First World War as necessary, just, and Christian, while other poems consider the devastating impact of war on those friends, family, and loved ones who remain behind.

The collection also includes works by Anne Finch, Louisa Costello, Byron, Tennyson, Kipling, Hardy, Graves, Sassoon, Brooke, Jessie Pope, May Wedderburn Cannan, Walt Whitman, Henry Reed, Adrian Mitchell, and Roger McGough among many others.