Every one of you won the war--
You and you and you--
Each one knowing what it was for,
And what was his job to
do.
Every one of you won the war,
Obedient,
unwearied, unknown,
Dung in the trenches, drift on the
shore,
Dust to the world's end blown;
Every one of
you, steady and true,
You and you and you--
Down in
the pit or up in the blue,
Whether you crawled or sailed
or flew,
Whether your closest comrade knew
Or you bore
the brunt alone--
All of you, all of you, name after
name,
Jones and Robinson, Smith and Brown,
You from
the piping prairie town,
You from the Fundy fogs that
came,
You from the city's roaring blocks,
You from
the bleak New England rocks
With the shingled roof in the
apple boughs,
You from the brown adobe house--
You
from the Rockies, you from the Coast,
You from the
burning frontier-post
And you from the Klondyke's frozen
flanks,
You from the cedar-swamps, you from the pine,
You from the cotton and you from the vine,
You from the
rice and the sugar-brakes,
You from the Rivers and you
from the Lakes,
You from the Creeks and you from the
Licks
And you from the brown bayou--
You and you and
you--
You from the pulpit, you from the mine,
You from
the factories, you from the banks,
Closer and closer,
ranks on ranks,
Airplanes and cannon, and rifles and
tanks,
Smith and Robinson, Brown and Jones,
Ruddy
faces or bleaching bones,
After the turmoil and blood and
pain
Swinging home to the folks again
Or sleeping
alone in the fine French rain--
Every one of you won the
war.
Every one of you won the war--
You and you
and you--
Pressing and pouring forth, more and more,
Toiling and straining from shore to shore
To reach the
flaming edge of the dark
Where man in his millions went
up like a spark,
You, in your thousands and millions
coming,
All the sea ploughed with you, all the air
humming,
All the land loud with you,
All our hearts
proud with you,
All our souls bowed with the awe of your
coming!
Where's the Arch high enough,
Lads, to
receive you,
Where's the eye dry enough,
Dears, to
perceive you,
When at last and at last in your glory you
come,
Tramping home?
Every one of you won the war,
You and you and you--
You that carry an unscathed head,
You that halt with a broken tread,
And oh, most of all,
you Dead, you Dead!
Lift up the Gates for these that
are last,
That are last in the great Procession.
Let
the living pour in, take possession,
Flood back to the
city, the ranch, the farm,
The church and the college and
mill,
Back to the office, the store, the exchange,
Back to the wife with the babe on her arm,
Back to the
mother that waits on the sill,
And the supper that's hot
on the range.
And now, when the last of them all are
by,
Be the Gates lifted up on high
To let those Others
in,
Those Others, their brothers, that softly tread,
That come so thick, yet take no ground,
That are so many,
yet make no sound,
Our Dead, our Dead, our Dead!
O
silent and secretly-moving throng,
In your fifty thousand
strong,
Coming at dusk when the wreaths have dropt,
And streets are empty, and music stopt,
Silently coming
to hearts that wait
Dumb in the door and dumb at the
gate,
And hear your step and fly to your call--
Every
one of you won the war,
But you, you Dead, most of all! |
