And he got up in uniform and looked at him and said:
"I wonder if you ever think about our soldiers dead.
All that you are to-day you owe some soldier in his grave;
If he had been afraid to fight, you still would be a slave."
If he had died a year ago beneath a peaceful sky,
Unjust our memory would have been; of him our tongues would lie.
We should have missed his splendid worth, we should have called him frail
And listed him among the weak and sorry men who fail.
But few regrets had marked his end; he would have passed unmourned—
Perhaps by those who knew him best, indifferently scorned.