Classic Poem

And here your armies, leopard-like, well shielded,
Leaf-strewn and shadow-mottled in the dews
As the moths that shower about their torch-lit blades,
Are couch'd in the wet glades,
The young men in their flower
Lying in their shoddy coats of shabby blue;
And heavy on their hearts
Lies all that ground of France that they have yielded.
From her they ask no thanks
They who to-day will choose
That they must die. They know
How lovely is the world that they must lose:
This bracken smell, these rivulets floating by,
Yet word is passed along the ranks;
A surge of joy along the endless ranks —
The bayonets rise, the young men rise and go.