More Songs by the Fighting Men
The shrine is rent and drilled
With bullets—aye, and some of them have killed,
Passing right thro' the thin mud walls, and past
The Hanging Figure in the plaster cast,
On to some human target, trudging by,
(Dropping it low with sharp surpriséd cry)
Even as I trudge by.
So have some died
For Right—bravely as Christ the Crucified
Died on Calvary's Cross; just as brave
And just as sacrificially. To save
The world He died, or so the worn-out creeds
Of Church would teach—but they, but men, dared deeds
And died as men. . . .
Because of Greater Love—
That Love of Loves, all other loves above—
The love of Home and Friends and Native Soil.
That these might never be the Foeman's spoil,
They gave their lives, their youth, their golden dreams
And airy castles, built where Sunlight gleams,
And Roses bloom . . .
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