And the soldiers waiting their turn to set out,
Heard behind them the rustling of the flag, cock of the war, song of sails!
All: Come! Speak! Speak!
The Messenger: But when they came to the field where they had to die or conquer,
They knew another flag.
The First Watcher: What flag?
The Messenger: What flag? Not a tatter of silk, not a woman's shirt that a child waves about on the end of a bean-pole!
But like some old gibbet that creaks beneath its burden of corpses, like a mast with its sinister yardarms,
The monstrous standard of our wretchedness, enormous, charged with chains!
They saw it while they set their feet on a soil enriched by the flesh