Before <br /> Twas not while England's sword unsheathed <br /> Put half a world to flight, <br /> Nor while their new-built cities breathed <br /> Secure behind her might; <br /> Not while she poured from Pole to Line <br /> Treasure and ships and men-- <br /> These worshippers at Freedoms shrine <br /> They did not quit her then! <br /> <br /> Not till their toes were driven forth <br /> By England o'er the main-- <br /> Not till the Frenchman from the North <br /> Had gone with shattered Spain; <br /> Not till the clean-swept oceans showed <br /> No hostile flag unrolled, <br /> Did they remember that they owed <br /> To Freedom--and were bold! <br /> <br /> <br />After <br /> <br />The snow lies thick on Valley Forge, <br /> The ice on the Delaware, <br />But the poor dead soldiers of King George <br /> They neither know nor care. <br /> <br />Not though the earliest primrose break <br /> On the sunny side of the lane, <br />And scuffling rookeries awake <br /> Their England' s spring again. <br /> <br />They will not stir when the drifts are gone, <br /> Or the ice melts out of the bay: <br />And the men that served with Washington <br /> Lie all as still as they. <br /> <br />They will not stir though the mayflower blows <br /> In the moist dark woods of pine, <br />And every rock-strewn pasture shows <br /> Mullein and columbine. <br /> <br />Each for his land, in a fair fight, <br /> Encountered strove, and died, <br />And the kindly earth that knows no spite <br /> Covers them side by side. <br /> <br />She is too busy to think of war; <br /> She has all the world to make gay; <br />And, behold, the yearly flowers are <br /> Where they were in our fathers' day! <br /> <br />Golden-rod by the pasture-wall <br /> When the columbine is dead, <br />And sumach leaves that turn, in fall, <br /> Bright as the blood they shed.<br /><br />Rudyard Kipling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-american-rebellion/
