When all our wars are done, and laid away Like broken toys beneath the mould of years, And centuries have laid their dreaming dust Above our fields of agony and tears -- When earth's dark gashes close, and crimson buds No more must bleed to hide a deeper red, And all the mad machinery of hate Lies with the deep oblivion of the dead -- Then may some minstrel, mourning on the past, Bewildered by our terror and our fate, Cry out to stab those tranquil days aghast On how you quenched your young and ardent breath At altars built for dark and drear-eyed gods Who took your strong and shining years away, And gave you for your love the kiss of clods And for your songs the mummery of death. His voice shall waken memory and tears, And like a bugle blowing through the dawn Shall echo faintly down those brighter years When wars are done -- when weary wars are done. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SLEEPY HOLLOW by WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING (1817-1901) AN INTERNATIONAL EPISODE (1889) by CAROLINE KING DUER BEFORE MARCHING, AND AFTER (IN MEMORIAM F.W.G.) by THOMAS HARDY A MIDSUMMER'S NOON IN THE AUSTRALIAN FOREST by CHARLES HARPUR SONNET PREFIXED TO 'THE COMMONWEALTH & GOVERNMENT OF VENICE' by EDMUND SPENSER |