Hail to you, comrades, who have won, <br />Where the torn lines of battle run <br />By tattered town and ruined mead, <br />The honour that men give with pride <br />To those who, daffing death aside, <br />Have done the valorous deed. <br /> <br />And has the war, then, brought to birth, <br />As flowers that spring from western earth <br />At summons of the pelting rain, <br />The courage that can force its way, <br />And hold the shadowing wings at bay, <br />And smile at lingering pain? <br /> <br />And is it true that only now <br />Life lifts from her heroic brow <br />The smothering shroud of deadly peace, <br />And laughs to sniff the morning air, <br />And bids a thousand bonfires flare <br />The news of her release? <br /> <br />Hell’s throat may swallow down its lie, <br />For men knew how to live and die <br />And take the gifts of motley fate, <br />Before the fiends of fear and greed, <br />Clasping, engendered from their seed <br />The hissing brood of hate. <br /> <br />Are they not sightless fools who crave <br />The sombre splendours of the grave <br />To prove that man is more than dust; <br />Who dabble fingers in the side <br />Of him who lives because he died, <br />Believing, when they must?<br /><br />John Le Gay Brereton<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/for-valour-2/
