We grudged not those that were dearer than all we possessed, <br />Lovers, brothers, sons. <br />Our hearts were full, and out of a full heart <br />We gave our belovèd ones. <br /> <br />Because we loved, we gave. In the hardest hour <br />When at last--so much unsaid <br />In the eyes--they went, simply, with tender smile, <br />Our hearts to the end they read. <br /> <br />They to their deeds! To things that their soul hated, <br />And yet to splendours won <br />From smoking hell by the spirit that moved in them: <br />But we to endure alone. <br /> <br />Their hearts rested on ours; their homing thoughts <br />Met ours in the still of the night. <br />We ached with the ache of the long waiting, and throbbed <br />With the throbs of the surging fight. <br /> <br />O had we failed them, then were we desolate now <br />And separated indeed. <br />What should have comforted, what should have helped us then <br />In the time of our bitter need! <br /> <br />But now, though sorrow be ever fresh, sorrow <br />Is tender as love; it knows <br />That of love it was born, and Love with the shining eyes <br />The hard way chose. <br /> <br />And out of deeps eternal, night and day, <br />A strength our sorrow frees, <br />Flooding us, full as the tide up the rivers flows <br />From the depth of the silent seas; <br /> <br />A strength that is mightier far than we, yet a strength <br />Whereof our spirit is breath, <br />Hope of the world, that is strange to hazard and fear, <br />To the wounds of Time, and Death.<br /><br />Robert Laurence Binyon<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-bereaved/
