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! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IN THE GOLD ROOM by OSCAR WILDE PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 21. YAKBUZU WA YABSUTU by EDWIN ARNOLD THE PROEM. TO LOVE by PHILIP AYRES EN TOUR; A SONG SEQUENCE: 5. THE EXILE by ALBERTA BANCROFT TO MR. BARBAULD, NOVEMBER 14, 1778 by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD |