That foes may whisper to our youth
That we have failed in courage here.
Lord, strengthen us, that they may know
Our spirits follow where they go!



Why We Fight


This is the thing we fight:
A cry of terror in the night;
A ship on work of mercy bent--
A carrier of the sick and maimed--
Beneath the cruel waters sent,
And those that did it, unashamed.

A woman who had tried to fill
A mother's place; had nursed the ill
And soothed the troubled brows of pain
And earned the dying's grateful prayers,
Before a wall by soldiers slain!
And such a poor pretext was theirs!

Old women pierced by bayonets grim
And babies slaughtered for a whim,
Cathedrals made the sport of shells,
No mercy, even for a child,
As though the imps of all the hells
Were crazed with drink and running wild.