��On exery heart, lest we forget — Secure at home — engrave this debt !
Too dehcate is flesh to be
The shield that nations interpose
'TwLxt red Ambition and his foes —
The bastion of Liberty.
So beautiful their bodies were,
Built with so exquisite a care :
So young and fit and lithe and fair.
The very flower of us were they,
The very flower, but yesterday !
Yet now so pitiful they lie,
Where love of country bade them hie
To fight this fierce Caprice — and die.
All mangled now, where shells have burst
And lead and steel have done their worst ;
The tender tissues ploughed away,
The year's slow processes effaced :
The Mother of us all, disgraced.
And some leave wives behind, young wives;
Already some have launched new lives :
A little daughter, little son ;
For thus this blundering world goes on.
But never more will any see
The old secure felicity.
The kindnesses that made us glad
Before the world went mad.
�� �
