"Now be this shield your glory or your hearse!
With it you earn my blessing or my curse!
Rather your ashes flecked with sparks of fame,
Than your live body clad in robes of shame!"
Oh yes, the Grecians loved their soldier dead!
Whether beneath the grass-blade's dainty tread,
Or 'mid the funeral pyre's majestic blaze,
They glowed within the living's envied gaze!
Yet not like ours that Grecian love could be:
They did not love the living as do we!