The road of the battle languished, <br /> <br />The hate from the guns was still, <br /> <br />While the moon rose up from a smoke cloud, <br /> <br />And looked at the dead on the hill. <br /> <br /> <br />Pale was her face with anguish, <br /> <br />Wet were her eyes with tears, <br /> <br />As she gazed on the twisted corpses, <br /> <br />Cut off in their earliest years. <br /> <br /> <br />Some were bit by the bullet, <br /> <br />Some were kissed by the steel, <br /> <br />Some were crushed by the cannon, <br /> <br />But all were still, how still! <br /> <br /> <br />The smoke wreaths hung in the hollows, <br /> <br />The blood stink rose in the air; <br /> <br />And the moon looked down in pity, <br /> <br />At the poor dead lying there. <br /> <br /> <br />Light of their childhood's wonder, <br /> <br />Moon of their puppy love, <br /> <br />Goal of their first ambition, <br /> <br />She watched them from above. <br /> <br /> <br />Yet not with regret she mourned them, <br /> <br />Fair slain on the field of strife, <br /> <br />Fools only lament the hero, <br /> <br />Who gives for faith his life. <br /> <br /> <br />She sighed for the lives extinguished, <br /> <br />She wept for the loves that grieve, <br /> <br />But she glowed with pride on seeing, <br /> <br />That manhood still doth live. <br /> <br /> <br />The moon sailed on contented, <br /> <br />Above the heaps of slain, <br /> <br />For she saw that manhood liveth, <br /> <br />And honor breathes again.<br /><br />General George S Patton Jnr<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-moon-and-the-dead/
