These, in the day when heaven was falling, <br />The hour when earth's foundations fled, <br />Followed their mercenary calling <br />And took their wages and are dead. <br /> <br />Their shoulders held the sky suspended; <br />They stood, and earth's foundations stay; <br />What God abandoned, these defended, <br />And saved the sum of things for pay.<br /><br />Alfred Edward Housman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/epitaph-on-an-army-of-mercenaries/
