Page:Poems of Patriotism (1942).djvu/64

 We little dreamed how much he loved his country and her flag; About the glorious Stars and Stripes we’d never heard him brag. But he was first to volunteer, while brilliant men demurred, He took the oath of loyalty without a faltering word, And then we found that he could talk, for one remembered night, There came a preaching pacifist denouncing men who fight, And he got up in uniform and looked at him and said: “I wonder if you ever think about our soldiers dead. All that you are today you owe some soldier in his grave; If he had been afraid to fight, you still would be a slave.”

If he had died a year ago beneath a peaceful sky, Unjust our memory would have been; of him our tongues would lie.