Don't cheer, damn you! Don't cheer! <br />Silence! Your bitterest tear <br />Is fulsomely sweet to-day. . . . <br />Down on your knees and pray. <br /> <br />See, they sing as they go, <br />Marching row upon row. <br />Who will be spared to return, <br />Sombre and starkly stern? <br />Chaps whom we knew - s0 strange, <br />Distant and dark with change; <br />Silent as those they slew, <br />Something in them dead too. <br />Who will return this way, <br />To sing as they sing to-day. <br /> <br />Send to the glut of the guns <br />Bravest and best of you sons. <br />Hurl a million to slaughter, <br />Blood flowing like Thames water; <br />Pile up pyramid high <br />Your dead to the anguished sky; <br />A monument down all time <br />Of hate and horror and crime. <br />Weep, rage, pity, curse, fear - <br />Anything, but . . . don't cheer. <br /> <br />Sow to the ploughing guns <br />Seed of your splendid sons. <br />Let your heroic slain <br />Richly manure the plain. <br />What will the harvest be? <br />Unborn of Unborn will see. . . . <br /> <br />Dark is the sky and drear. . . . <br />For the pity of God don't cheer. <br />Dark and dread is their way. <br />Who sing as they march to-day. . . . <br />Humble your hearts and pray.<br /><br />Robert William Service<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/don-t-cheer/
