See the gleam of the white sad faces
Moving steadily, row on row,
Marching away to their hopeless wars:
Drum-taps, drum-taps, where are they marching?
Terrible, beautiful, human faces,
Common as dirt, but softer than snow,
Coarser than clay, but calm as the stars.
III
Is it the last rank readily, steadily
Swinging away to the unknown doom?
Ere you can think it, the drum-taps beat
Louder, and here they come marching, marching,
Great new level locked ranks of them readily
Steadily swinging out of the gloom
Marching endlessly down the street.
IV
Unregarded imperial regiments
White from the roaring intricate places
Deep in the maw of the world's machine,
Well content, they are marching, marching,
Unregarded imperial regiments,
Ay, and there are those terrible faces
Great world-heroes that might have been.
V
Hints and facets of One—the Eternal,
Faces of grief, compassion and pain,
Faces of hunger, faces of stone,
Faces of love and of labour, marching,
Changing facets of One—the Eternal,
Streaming up thro' the wind and the rain,
All together and each alone.
VI
You that doubt of the world's one Passion,
You for whose science the stars are a-stray,
Hark—to their orderly thunder-tread!
These, in the night, with the stars are marching
One to the end of the world's one Passion!
You that have taken their Master away,
Where have you laid Him, living or dead?
VII