Classic Poem

What do your clear bells ring to me
In this glad hour of jubilee?
Not joy — not joy. I hear instead
So many dead! so many dead!

So many, who but yesterday
Went out, great-hearted, to the fray,
Giving up all that they could give
To fight, forsooth! for " right to live."

Life was before them, larger scope,
Room for the morrow's quenchless hope...
Now they are stark and cold afar, —
Pawns in this ruthless Game of War!

Glory and power, honour, ease,
What are all those to-day to these?
What their laudation, now they lie
" Piled in the trenches, three feet high!"

This only — that to duty's call
They answered nobly, each and all:
This also — that their blood is seed
For bonds unloosed, for peoples freed.

Not less, your peal of bells to me
Rings mourning more than jubilee!
Listen — and with uncovered head —
So many dead! so many dead!