Classic Poem

That wooden cross beside the road
Marks—as the now-blurred legend showed—
That there a ‘soldat anglais’ dead
Has found betimes his foreign bed—
His last impregnable abode.

'Tis no uncommon episode,
You say, of war's barbaric code,
For which so many men have bled—
That wooden cross!

Nay, but this blood was well bestowed;
'Twas shed for nations 'neath the load
Of mailed oppression fury-fed,
And ruthless rapine, sore bestead.
Surely it needs no funeral ode—
That wooden cross!