Page:Poems of the Great War - Cunliffe.djvu/275

 III In other lands they mav, With public joy or dole along the way, With pomp and pageantry and loud lament Of drums and trumpets, and with merriment Of grateful hearts, lead into rest and sted The nation's dead.

If we had drums and trumpets, if we had

Aught of heroic pitch or accent glad

To honor vou as bids tradition old,

With banners fiimg or draped in mournful fold,

And pacing cortege ; these would we not bring

For your last journeying.

We have no drums or trumpets ; naught have we But some green branches taken from a tree, And flowers that grow at large in mead and vale ; Nothing of choice have we, or of avail To do vou honor as our honor deems, And as vour worth beseems.

Sleep, drums and trumpets, yet a little time ; All ends and all begins, and there is chime At last where discord was, and joy at last Wliere woe wept out her eyes : be not downcast. Here is prosperity and goodly cheer, For life does follow death, and death is here.

— James Stephens.

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