THAT wooden cross beside the road Marks -- as the now-blurred legend showed -- That there a 'soldat anglais' dead Has found betimes his foreign bed -- His last impregnable abode. 'Tis no uncommon episode, You say, of war's barbaric code, For which so many men have bled -- That wooden cross! Nay, but this blood was well bestowed; 'Twas shed for nations 'neath the load Of mailed oppression fury-fed, And ruthless rapine, sore bestead. Surely it needs no funeral ode -- That wooden cross! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MY MOTHER LEFT ME by KAREN SWENSON AT DOVER CLIFFS, JULY 20, 1787 by WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES THE BOROUGH: LETTER 22. POOR OF THE BOROUGH. PETER GRIMES by GEORGE CRABBE THE OLD SWIMMIN'-HOLE by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY TO AMERICA, ON HER FIRST SONS FALLEN IN THE GREAT WAR by E. M. WALKER AN AUTOGRAPH (1) by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |