And be it, too, remembered
That we of an older day,
In equal piety of purpose,
Laid our own offerings on the alter
Of our Country’s honour,
Nor small were they, nor scantily-measured out
But the full outpourings of this constant faith:
That when conscience calls the spirit must obey
Else, life is nothingness
And living but an empty shell of selfishness.
Nor shall our sacrifice and theirs
Be vain and unrewarded:
For it is written: No least sacrifice of love goes gainless:
Due payment comes,
Not in the molten mintage of material things,
But in the eternal sublimation of the spirit,
And its noble dedication to the Divine cause
Of Justice and of Truth.
This then is the reward:
The soul is made one with God and His good Angels
In battling for the right.
This modest tribute do we pay,
In pride and thankfulness
To those who came
From North and South and
South and North,
And who went forth, in faith and fervour,
To battle for the right.
And this the claim we boldly so assert,
On their behalf and ours:
That by their service and their sacrifice,
Linked with the freedom-loving men of Britain,
Full surely have they brought nearer that Great Day.
When no Border will there be to sunder
And no hates divide,
The Saxon and the Gael,
But a blessed flowering of friendship and goodwill,
Shall permeate the pageant of their lives.
E.N.D.
