WAR, THE LIBERATOR
(To the Authoress of “Non-combatants”)
SURELY War is vile to you, you who can but know of it,
Broken men and broken hearts, and boys too young to die,
You that never knew its joy, never felt the glow of it,
Valour and the pride of men, soaring to the sky.
Death’s a fearful thing to you, terrible in suddenness,
Lips that will not laugh again, tongues that will not sing,
You that have not ever seen their sudden life of happiness,
The moment they looked down on death, a cowed and beaten thing.
Broken men and broken hearts, and boys too young to die,
You that never knew its joy, never felt the glow of it,
Valour and the pride of men, soaring to the sky.
Death’s a fearful thing to you, terrible in suddenness,
Lips that will not laugh again, tongues that will not sing,
You that have not ever seen their sudden life of happiness,
The moment they looked down on death, a cowed and beaten thing.
Say what life would theirs have been, that it should make you weep for them,
A small grey world imprisoning the wings of their desire?
Happier than they could tell who knew not life would keep for them
Fragments of the high Romance, the old Heroic fire.
A small grey world imprisoning the wings of their desire?
Happier than they could tell who knew not life would keep for them
Fragments of the high Romance, the old Heroic fire.
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