Comrade, within your tent of clay
— Waiting the march of ghostly legions,
The dead can speak. What do they say
— As they march to the heavenly regions?

Comrade, your peace is still and deep
— As God's own flesh burned to gray embers.
How can I honor you who sleep
— Where only God himself remembers?

" Comrade, " he says, " I am not dead,
— Nor is my last strange sentence spoken
As long as comrades mark the tread
— Of crippled feet and bodies broken.

" Remember them, and I shall die.
— Remember them and then, forgetting
Us dead, show them the clean white sky
— With the sun of peace never setting. "

Comrade, within your tent of clay
Waiting the march of ghostly legions,
The dead can speak. What do they say
As they march to the heavenly regions?

Comrade, your peace is still and deep
As God's own flesh burned to gray embers.
How can I honor you who sleep
Where only God himself remembers?

" Comrade, " he says, " I am not dead,
Nor is my last strange sentence spoken
As long as comrades mark the tread
Of crippled feet and bodies broken.

" Remember them, and I shall die.
Remember them and then, forgetting
Us dead, show them the clean white sky
With the sun of peace never setting.