A LITTLE cross of weather-silvered wood,
Hung with a garish wreath of tinselled wire,
And on it carved a legend — thus it runs:
" Ici repose — " Add what name you will,
And multiply by thousands: in the fields,
Along the roads, beneath the trees — one here,
A dozen there, to each its simple tale
Of one more jewel threaded star-like on
The sacrificial rosary of France.
And as I read and read again those words,
Those simple words, they took a mystic sense;
And from the glamour of an alien tongue
They wove insistent music in my brain,
Which, in a twilight hour, when all the guns
Were silent, shaped itself to song.
O happy dead! who sleep embalmed in glory,
Safe from corruption, purified by fire, —
Ask you our pity? — ours, mud-grimed and gory,
Who still must grimly strive, grimly desire?
You have outrun the reach of our endeavour,
Have flown beyond our most exalted quest, —
Who prate of Faith and Freedom, knowing ever
That all we really fight for's just — a rest,
The rest that only Victory can bring us —
Or Death, which throws us brother-like by you —
The civil commonplace in which 'twill fling us
To neutralize our then too martial hue.
But you have rest from every tribulation
Even in the midst of war; you sleep serene,
Pinnacled on the sorrow of a nation,
In cerements of sacrificial sheen.
Oblivion cannot claim you: our heroic
War-lustred moment, as our youth, will pass
To swell the dusty hoard of Time the Stoic,
That gathers cobwebs in the nether glass.
We shall grow old, and tainted with the rotten
Effluvia of the peace we fought to win,
The bright deeds of our youth will be forgotten,
Effaced by later failure, sloth, or sin;
But you have conquered Time, and sleep forever,
Like gods, with a white halo on your brows —
Your souls our lode-stars, your death-crowned endeavour
The spur that holds the nations to their vows.
Hung with a garish wreath of tinselled wire,
And on it carved a legend — thus it runs:
" Ici repose — " Add what name you will,
And multiply by thousands: in the fields,
Along the roads, beneath the trees — one here,
A dozen there, to each its simple tale
Of one more jewel threaded star-like on
The sacrificial rosary of France.
And as I read and read again those words,
Those simple words, they took a mystic sense;
And from the glamour of an alien tongue
They wove insistent music in my brain,
Which, in a twilight hour, when all the guns
Were silent, shaped itself to song.
O happy dead! who sleep embalmed in glory,
Safe from corruption, purified by fire, —
Ask you our pity? — ours, mud-grimed and gory,
Who still must grimly strive, grimly desire?
You have outrun the reach of our endeavour,
Have flown beyond our most exalted quest, —
Who prate of Faith and Freedom, knowing ever
That all we really fight for's just — a rest,
The rest that only Victory can bring us —
Or Death, which throws us brother-like by you —
The civil commonplace in which 'twill fling us
To neutralize our then too martial hue.
But you have rest from every tribulation
Even in the midst of war; you sleep serene,
Pinnacled on the sorrow of a nation,
In cerements of sacrificial sheen.
Oblivion cannot claim you: our heroic
War-lustred moment, as our youth, will pass
To swell the dusty hoard of Time the Stoic,
That gathers cobwebs in the nether glass.
We shall grow old, and tainted with the rotten
Effluvia of the peace we fought to win,
The bright deeds of our youth will be forgotten,
Effaced by later failure, sloth, or sin;
But you have conquered Time, and sleep forever,
Like gods, with a white halo on your brows —
Your souls our lode-stars, your death-crowned endeavour
The spur that holds the nations to their vows.