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ride cossacks ride charge turcos charge the fateful hour has come
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the superman has burst his bonds with kultur-flag unfurled and prayer on lip he runs amuck imperilling the world
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and shut the strife in darkness: all was still then slowly crept a triumph on the dark and i heard beauty singing up the hill
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i have heard the townsfolk come i have heard the roll and thunder of the nearest drum as the drummer stopped and cried hear
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be strong the summons comes prepare
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and there was calm in my heart of the desert of the dead sea of vast plains of the west before the coming storm and there was calm in their eyes like the last calm that shall be
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they seem to be walking in dreams they seem not to know it is their homes their happiness vanishing so
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they sang an old war-song i have heard it often in other days but never before when war was walking the world's highways
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half a thousand dead men soon shall hear and see we're a band said the weary big dragoon
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and if he sees as clearly as i do where her shrine must fall he longs as dearly
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it's a cot and a hospital ward for me but i'll tell 'em in blighty wherever i be how the guards came through
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but here you are at last and the sight is good for our eyes glad to welcome you up and out of the caves of the sea and ready for sale or barter whatever your will may be
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the captain of the submersible oh do not be impatient good friends of this neutral land that we have been so tardy in reaching your eager strand
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they chose and the women and children that are greeting you here are those ghosts of the women and children that the rest of the hundred chose
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come come get down to business for time is money you know and you must make up in both to us for having been so slow
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deal as you will with me this is my choice to the end to live in the life i vowed
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and sweetness filled her brave with a vision of understanding beyond the hour that knelled to the waiting grave
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a mitrailleuse battery planted on top of this well-chosen ridge held the road for the prussians and covered the direct approach to the bridge
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will he live will he last will he make it and so near to the goal
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god of battles look down and protect him lord his heart is as thine let him live
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and i thought of my beautiful paris and gave a last look at the land at france my belle france in her glory of blue sky and green field and wood
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death with honor but never surrender and to die with such men it was good
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and poured them molten from thy tragic towers now are the windows dust that were thy flower patterned like frost petalled like asphodels
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full sixty yards i've seen them throw with all that nicety of aim they learned on british cricket-fields
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shouts back the sound of mirth tramp of feet and lilt of song ringing all the road along
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when cheeks are flushed and glasses gilt and pearled with the sweet wine of france that concentrates the sunshine and the beauty of the world
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o the fading eyes the grimed face turned bony oped mouth gushing fallen head lessening pressure of a hand shrunk clammed and stony
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we are here in a wood of little beeches and the leaves are like black lace against a sky of nacre
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goaded like the damned by some invisible wrath a will stronger than weariness stronger than animal fear implacable and monotonous
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almost at unawares savagely and strewn in bloody fragments to be the carrion of rats and crows
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choked with wild weeds and overgrown with rank grass all torn and rent by war's opposing engines strewn
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not only unto thee across the narrow sea but from the loneliest vale in the last land's heart the sad-eyed watching mother sees her sons depart
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the glass is dim we see not wisely far nor well but bred of english bone and reared on freedom's wine all that we have and are we lay on england's shrine
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the sentry stands his limbs with cold congealed his head a-nod with sleep he cannot yield though sleep and snow in deadly force unite
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the soil of france fat fields and green that bred my blood and bone
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with these we hold in soul and heart with these we choose our lot and part till liberty is safe on sea and shore
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the fresh cold wind of dawn blows on my face as in the sun's raw heart i swiftly fly and watch the seas glide by
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oh down by millwall basin as i went the other day i met a skipper that i knew and to him i did say now what's the cargo captain that brings you up this way
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and if it's sweeping mines or hanging out with booby-traps for the skulking submarines i'm here to do my blooming best and give the beggars beans
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a rough job and a tough job is the best job for me and what or where i don't much care i'll take what it may be for a tight place is the right place when it's foul weather at sea
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what matter on the winning of a goal you staked your soul
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perhaps 't was pluck that hardened him a man among the men perhaps
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hell but one was hit and tumbling like a pigeon plump
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as we ebbed with the battle-tide fingers of red-hot steel suddenly closed on my side
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i crawled on my hands and lay where a shallow crater yawned wide then i swooned
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his words i already foreknew these are old wounds said he but of late they have troubled me
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the wounded canadian speaks my leg it's off at the knee
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i'm gay you bet i am gay but i wasn't a while ago
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what has happened since then since i lay with my face to the wall the most despairing of men
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so over the blanket's rim i raised my terrible face and i saw how i envied him
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then i stopped for lo she was there and a great light shone in her eyes
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they sent him back to her the letter came saying
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wasn't she glad now everything seemed won and all the rest for them permissible ease
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blow bugles blow they brought us for our dearth holiness lacked so long and love and pain
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the years had given them kindness dawn was theirs and sunset and the colours of the earth
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and your bright promise withered long and sped is touched stirs rises opens and grows sweet and blossoms and is you when you are dead
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not one of these poor men who died but did within his soul believe that death for thee was glorified
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so young they were so strong and well until the bitter summons fell too young to die
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so beautiful their bodies were built with so exquisite a care so young and fit and lithe and fair
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yet now so pitiful they lie where love of country bade them hie to fight this fierce caprice and die
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we can but give our tears ye dead men who shall bring you fame in the coming years
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back from the trenches more dead than alive stone-deaf and dazed and with a broken knee he hobbled slowly muttering vacantly
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we fell we lay we slumbered we took rest with the wild nerves quiet at last and the vexed brain freed of the heavy dreams of hearts afar
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and what do you call it asked one i thought i was dead
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and over the wide field friend and foe spoke of small things remembering not old woe of war and hunger hatred and fierce words
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they sat and listened to the brooks and birds and watched the starlight perish in pale flame wondering what god would look like when he came
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we laughed and paid the forfeit glad to pay being recompensed beyond our sacrifice with that nor death nor time can take away
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but wherever they lie an english rose so red and a lily of france so pale will grow for a love that never and never can fail
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yes so we called you then you far more wise than to give life to men
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look look down and gather the blinded oceans moon of compassion
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light of light grant them eternal peace and let light perpetual shine upon them light everlasting
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in flooded trench half numb to cold or pain or marching through the desert sand to some dread place that they may never gain
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though death may lurk in any tree or hill his brave young spirit is their stay trusting in that they'll follow where he will
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your son and my son the downy things sheltered in mother's breast by mother's wings should they be broken in the lord's wars peace
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dead by the russian lance dead in southern mountains dead through the farms of france
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some heard some fled it must be some slept for they never woke
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binyon laurence his war writings include the winnowing fan and the anvil published in america under the title of the cause
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in october he was recalled to england was promoted to the rank of staff captain in the intelligence corps and was sent to italy to engage in special duties
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hemphrey malcolm he is a lance-corporal in the army ordnance corps nairobi british east africa
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morgan charles langbridge he is a sub-lieutenant in the royal naval division and is a prisoner of war in holland
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phillpotts eden among his war writings are the human boy and the war and plain song
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ross sir ronald he is the president of the poetry society of great britain and is a lieutenant-colonel in the royal army medical corps
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scollard clinton his war writings include the vale of shadows and other verses of the great war and italy in arms and other verses
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scott canon frederick george he is a major in the third brigade of the first canadian division british expeditionary force
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champion of human honour let us lave come death i'd have a word with thee courage came to you with your boyhood's grace
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under our curtain of fire under the tow-path past the barges unflinching hero watchful to foresee
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ye sleepers who will sing you you dare to say with perjured lips you have become a forge of snow-white fire
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yes truly it is a great thing for a nation that it get an articulate voice that it produce a man who will speak forth melodiously what the heart of it means
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i conned old times i sat studying at the feet of the great masters now if eligible o that the great masters might return and study me
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the soul for ever and for ever longer than soil is brown and solid longer than water ebbs and flows
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each is not for its own sake i say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion's sake
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for you to share with me two greatnesses and a third one rising inclusive and more resplendent the greatness of love and democracy and the greatness of religion
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o strain musical flowing through ages now reaching hither i take to your reckless and composite chords i add to them and cheerfully pass them forward
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i will make the true poem of riches to earn for the body and the mind whatever adheres and goes forward and is not dropped by death
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land of coal and iron land of gold lands of cotton sugar rice
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land of the pastoral plains the grass-fields of the world land of those sweet-aired interminable plateaus
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inextricable lands the clutched together the passionate ones
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the side by side the elder and younger brothers the bony-limbed
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the pennsylvanian the virginian the double carolinian
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on my way a moment i pause here for you and here for america
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