Page:More songs by the fighting men, soldier poets, second series, 1917.djvu/82

More Songs by the Fighting Men The shrine is rent and drilled

With bullets—aye, and some of them have killed,

Passing right thro' the thin mud walls, and past

The Hanging Figure in the plaster cast,

On to some human target, trudging by,

(Dropping it low with sharp surpriséd cry)

Even as I trudge by.

So have some died

For Right—bravely as Christ the Crucified

Died on Calvary's Cross; just as brave

And just as sacrificially. To save

The world He died, or so the worn-out creeds

Of Church would teach—but they, but men, dared deeds

And died as men. . ..

Because of Greater Love—

That Love of Loves, all other loves above—

The love of Home and Friends and Native Soil.

That these might never be the Foeman's spoil,

They gave their lives, their youth, their golden dreams

And airy castles, built where Sunlight gleams,

And Roses bloom. ..

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