Not only that your cause is just and right -- <br />This much was never doubted; war or play, <br />We go with clean hands into any fight; <br />That is our English way; -- <br /> <br />Not this high thought alone shall brace your thews <br />To trample under heel those Vandal hordes <br />Who laugh when blood of mother and babe imbrues <br />Their damnèd craven swords. <br /> <br />But here must be hot passion, white of flame, <br />Pure hate of this unutterable wrong, <br />Sheer wrath for Christendom so sunk in shame, <br />To make you trebly strong. <br /> <br />These smoking hearths of fair and peaceful lands, <br />This reeking trail of deeds abhorred of Hell, <br />They cry aloud for vengeance at your hands, <br />Ruthless and swift and fell. <br /> <br />Strike, then -- and spare not -- for the innocent dead <br />Who lie there, stark beneath the weeping skies, <br />As though you saw your dearest in their stead <br />Butchered before your eyes. <br /> <br />And though the guiltless pay for others' guilt <br />Who preached these brute ideals in camp and Court; <br />Though lives of brave and gentle foes be spilt, <br />That loathe this coward sport; <br /> <br />On each, without distinction, worst or best <br />Fouled by a nation's crime, one doom must fall; <br />Be you its instrument, and leave the rest <br />To God, the Judge of all. <br /> <br />Let it be said of you, when sounds at length <br />Over the final field the victor's strain: -- <br />'They struck at infamy with all their strength, <br />And earth is clean again!'<br /><br />Sir Owen Seaman<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-avengers/
