Page:For remembrance, soldier poets who have fallen in the war, Adcock, 1920.djvu/54

34 back from the fighting line (I am saying nothing, for the moment, of the many, their peers in song as in arms, from the Britains overseas), and you would discover that, till the German onslaught left them no honourable choice, they were, with one or two exceptions, essentially men of peace—they belonged to or were preparing for almost any trade or profession but that of the soldier. They were the true pacifists, so sincere in their devotion to Peace that they did not hesitate to fight and die for her sake; they were the authentic conscientious objectors, loathing bloodshed, yet ready to shed their own in safeguarding others who were dear to them, not afraid to put aside private scruples and, in a spirit of self-abnegation, to risk losing their personal souls that the freedom of the world and the general soul of the race might be saved.

In saying this I am not trying my hand at rhetorical flourishes; I am merely summarising, as best I may, the gospel, the ideals, the aspirations that are enshrined in their war poetry. There is a wide