This is the thing we fight: <br />A cry of terror in the night; <br />A ship on work of mercy bent— <br />A carrier of the sick and maimed— <br />Beneath the cruel waters sent, <br />And those that did it, unashamed. <br /> <br />A woman who had tried to fill <br />A mother's place; had nursed the ill <br />And soothed the troubled brows of pain <br />And earned the dying's grateful prayers, <br />Before a wall by soldiers slain! <br />And such a poor pretext was theirs! <br /> <br />Old women pierced by bayonets grim <br />And babies slaughtered for a whim, <br />Cathedrals made the sport of shells, <br />No mercy, even for a child, <br />As though the imps of all the hells <br />Were crazed with drink and running wild. <br /> <br />All this we fight—that some day when <br />Good sense shall come again to men, <br />Our children's children may not read <br />This age's history thus defamed <br />And find we served a selfish creed <br />And ever be of us ashamed!<br /><br />Edgar Albert Guest<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/why-we-fight-3/
