Group Four
by Henry G. Lee (11 Nov 1943)
We'll have our small white crosses by and by,
Our cool, green lawns, our well-spaced, well-cared trees,
Our antique cannons, muzzles to the sky,
Our statues and our flowers and our wreaths.
Will have our bold-faced bronze and copper plaques
To tell in stirring words of that we saved
And who we were, with names and dates; our stacks
Of silent rifles, spaced between the graves.
We'll have our country's praise, here below
They'll make a shrine of this small bit of hell
For wide-eye tourists; and so few will know
And those who know will be the last to tell
The wordless suffering of our lives as slaves,
Our squalid deaths beneath this dripping sky,
The stinking tangle of our common graves.
We'll have our small white crosses by and by.
|
|