44
PATRIOTIC PIECES
OUR YOUTH
Permission of the author
Once more, once more into the fire they go,
With their dreamed and their undreamed deeds of the coming years
Put to the chance of a shell or a bayonet's blow—
With a smile in their eyes made bright by a touch of tears,
And a laugh on their lips they have gone to meet our foe!
Once more the flag that they love floats proudly on ahead
Which never on land or sea has known defeat
And the voices that rise from the unforgotten dead
Sing the great song that lifts at the marching feet,
That it ever has flung its folds where Freedom led!
To-day they fight for a freedom newly born,
For the earth is weary of kings and the spawn of kings,
And out of the throes of a world with anguish torn
