The Children
These were our children who died for our lands: they were dear in our sight.
We have only the memory left of their hometreasured sayings and laughter.
The price of our loss shall be paid to our hands, not another's hereafter.
Neither the Alien nor Priest shall decide on it.
That is our right.
But who shall return us the children ?
At the hour the Barbarian chose to disclose his pretences,
And raged against Man, they engaged, on the breasts that they bared for us,
The first felon-stroke of the sword he had longtime prepared for us -Their bodies were all our defence while we wrought our defences.
They bought us anew with their blood, forbearing to blame us,
Those hours which we had not made good when the Judgment o'ercame us.
They believed us and perished for it.
Our statecraft, our
Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the
Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour.
Not since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her!
Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them.
The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption:
Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption,
Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marvelling, closed on them.
That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was
To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven - By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled on the
To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes - to be cindered by fires -To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale
From crater to crater.
For this we shall take expiation.
But who shall return us our children?
Rudyard Kipling
Other author posts
The Way Through The Woods
They shut the road through the Seventy years ago Weather and rain have undone it again, And now you would never
The Mine-Sweepers
Dawn off the Foreland — the young flood making Jumbled and short and steep — Black in the hollows and bright where it's breaking — Awkward water to sweep Mines reported in the fairway, Warn all traffic and detain Sent up Unity,
If
(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies) If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
Chant-Pagan
Me that 'ave been what I've been — Me that 'ave gone where I've gone —Me that 'ave seen what I've seen — 'Ow can I ever take With awful old England again, An' 'ouses both sides of the street, And 'edges two sides of the lane,
