Poets of England, where are you to-day? <br />If I, removed by nigh three hundred years <br />From English soil, share thus your hopes and fears, <br />And, young no longer, plan to join the fray, <br />What swords are at your gates, that you delay <br />Your passage to the thundering frontiers? <br />The heart of Bruce was hurled beyond the spears, <br />And one as great hath shown you now the way. <br /> <br />Say not, 'Why place a weapon in his hand?' <br />Say not, 'He could have written many a book, <br />To render better service to his land.' <br />There comes a time when sterner things must be, <br />And all the words of Byron and of Brooke <br />Match not the stand they took for liberty.<br /><br />George Sterling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-death-of-rupert-brooke/
