Sing us a song, oh, soldier, chant in a martial strain,
Those who have died in battle, those who come home again.
Call us the mothers of heroes, call us the mothers of men,
Till our hearts are torn and bleeding. And then, oh, soldier, then,
Play us in minor cadence, a harp with a tautened string,
Set to a heavenly music, the songs the angels sing,
Of a world by Love safeguarded, where wars shall ever cease,
Sing us at last oh, soldier, the Song of Eternal Peace.
OUR SOLDIER DEAD
ANNETTE KOHN
in New York Times
Permission to reproduce in this book
“IN Flanders fields, where poppies blow,”
In France where beauteous roses grow,
There let them rest—forever sleep,
While we eternal vigil keep
With our heart’s love—with our soul’s pray’r,
For all our Fallen “Over There.”
The sounding sea between us rolls
And in perpetual requiem tolls—
Three thousand miles of cheerless space
Lie ’twixt us and their resting place;
’Twas God who took them by the hand
And left them in the stranger land.
The earth is sacred where they fell—
Forever on it lies the spell
Of hero deeds in Freedom’s cause,
And men unborn shall come and pause
To say a prayer, or bow the head,
So leave these graves to hold their dead.
Let not our sighing nor our tears
Fall on them through the coming years
Who on the land, on sea, in air,
With dauntless courage everywhere,
Their homes and country glorified—
Stood to their arms and smiling died.