<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341876" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Victory</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I.<br>Before those golden altar-lights we stood,<br>Each one of us remembering his own dead.<br>A more than earthly beauty seemed to brood<br>On that hushed throng, and bless each bending head.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Beautiful on that gold, the deep-sea blue<br>Of those young seamen, ranked on either side,<br>Blent with the khaki, while the silence grew<br>Deep, as for wings--Oh, deep as England's pride.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Beautiful on that gold, two banners rose--<br>Two flags that told how Freedom's realm was made,<br>One fair with stars of hope, and one that shows<br>The glorious cross of England's long crusade;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Two flags, now joined, till that high will be done<br>Which sent them forth to make the whole world one.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There were no signs of joy that eyes could see.<br>Our hearts were all three thousand miles away.<br>There were no trumpets blown for victory.<br>A million dead were calling us that day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And eyes grew blind, at times; but grief was deep,<br>Deeper than any foes or friends have known;<br>For Oh, my country's lips are locked to keep<br>Her bitterest loss her own, and all her own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Only the music told what else was dumb,<br>The funeral march to which our pulses beat;<br>For all our dead went by, to a muffled drum<br>We heard the tread of all those phantom feet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yes. There was victory! Deep in every soul.<br>We heard them marching to their unseen goal.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>III.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There, once again, we saw the Cross go by,<br>The Cross that fell with all those glorious towers,<br>Burnt black in France or mocked on Calvary,<br>Till--in one night--the crosses rose like flowers,<br>Legions of small white crosses, mile on mile,<br>Pencilled with names that had outfought all pain,<br>Where every shell-torn acre seems to smile--<br>_Who shall destroy the cross that rose again?_</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Out of the world's Walpurgis, where hope perished,<br>Where all the forms of faith in ruin fell,<br>Where every sign of heaven that earth had cherished<br>Shrivelled among the lava-floods of hell,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The eternal Cross that conquers might with right<br>Rose like a star to lead us through the night.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>IV.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">How shall the world remember? Men forget:<br>Our dead are all too many even for Fame!<br>Man's justice kneels to kings, and pays no debt<br>To those who never courted her acclaim.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Cheat not your heart with promises to pay<br>For gifts beyond all price so freely given.<br>Where is the heart so rich that it can say<br>To those who mourn, 'I will restore your heaven'?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But these, with their own hands, laid up their treasure<br>Where never an emperor can break in and steal,<br>Treasure for those that loved them past all measure<br>In those high griefs that earth can never heal,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Proud griefs, that walk on earth, yet gaze above,<br>Knowing that sorrow is but remembered love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>V.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Love that still holds us with immortal power,<br>Yet cannot lift us to His realm of light;<br>Love that still shows us heaven for one brief hour<br>Only to daunt the heart with that sheer height;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Love that is made of loveliness entire<br>In form and thought and act; and still must shame us<br>Because we ever acknowledge and aspire,<br>And yet let slip the shining hands that claim us.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O, if this Love might cloak with rags His glory,<br>Laugh, eat and drink, and dwell with suffering men,<br>Sit with us at our hearth, and hear our story,<br>This world--we thought--might be transfigured then.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'But Oh,' Love answered, with swift human tears,<br>'All these things have I done, these many years.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VI.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'This day,' Love said, 'if ye will hear my voice;<br>I mount and sing with birds in all your skies.<br>I am the soul that calls you to rejoice.<br>And every wayside flower is my disguise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Look closely. Are the wings too wide for pity?<br>Look closely. Do these tender hues betray?<br>How often have I sought my Holy City?<br>How often have ye turned your hearts away?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Is there not healing in the beauty I bring you?<br>Am I not whispering in green leaves and rain,<br>Singing in all that woods and seas can sing you?<br>Look, once, on Love, and earth is heaven again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'O, did your Spring but once a century waken,<br>The heaven of heavens for this would be forsaken.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>VII.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There's but one gift that all our dead desire,<br>One gift that men can give, and that's a dream,<br>Unless we, too, can burn with that same fire<br>Of sacrifice; die to the things that seem;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Die to the little hatreds; die to greed;<br>Die to the old ignoble selves we knew;<br>Die to the base contempts of sect and creed,<br>And rise again, like these, with souls as true.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nay (since these died before their task was finished)<br>Attempt new heights, bring even their dreams to birth:--<br>Build us that better world, Oh, not diminished<br>By one true splendor that they planned on earth.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And that's not done by sword, or tongue, or pen,<br>There's but one way. God make us better men.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Alfred+Noyes">Alfred Noyes</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341876" data-title="Victory de Alfred Noyes" data-description="I. Before those golden altar-lights we stood, Each one of us remembering his own dead. A more than earthly beauty seemed to brood On that hushed throng, and bless each bending head. Beautiful on that gold, the deep-sea blue Of those young seamen,..."></div> </div> </div>

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