Killed in action. Extrospective (focused on external impressions rather than inner emotions). Poetry which, according to his detractors, can be callous in the midst of war's atrocities. Powerful and unsettling because its exact descriptions eschew egotism and shift the burden of emotion from the poet to the reader.

Keith Douglas began to publish his verse in periodicals in the 1930s, while he was still studying at Oxford; however, the only volume to be published in his lifetime was `Selected Poems` (1943). He was killed in Normandy. His reputation rests mainly on his war poetry, particularly that depicting the desert warfare he experienced in North Africa. The unquiet intensity of this piece is reminiscent of that found in some Elizabethan `metaphysical` poetry. The German title, `Vergissmeinnicht`, means `Forget me not`