<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Debt</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">No</span> more old England will they see --</p><p class="line">Those men who've died for you and me.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">So lone and cold they lie; but we,</p><p class="line">We still have life; we still may greet</p><p class="line">Our pleasant friends in home and street;</p><p class="line">We still have life, are able still</p><p class="line">To climb the turf of Bignor Hill,</p><p class="line">To see the placid sheep go by,</p><p class="line">To hear the sheep-dog's eager cry,</p><p class="line">To feel the sun, to taste the rain,</p><p class="line">To smell the Autumn's scents again</p><p class="line">Beneath the brown and gold and red</p><p class="line">Which old October's brush has spread,</p><p class="line">To hear the robin in the lane,</p><p class="line">To look upon the English sky.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">So young they were, so strong and well,</p><p class="line">Until the bitter summons fell --</p><p class="line">Too young to die.</p><p class="line">Yet there on foreign soil they lie,</p><p class="line">So pitiful, with glassy eye</p><p class="line">And limbs all rumbled anyhow:</p><p class="line">Quite finished, now.</p><p class="line">On every heart -- lest we forget --</p><p class="line">Secure at home -- engrave this debt!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Too delicate is flesh to be</p><p class="line">The shield that nations interpose</p><p class="line">'Twixt red Ambition and his foes --</p><p class="line">The bastion of Liberty.</p><p class="line">So beautiful their bodies were,</p><p class="line">Built with so exquisite a care:</p><p class="line">So young and fit and lithe and fair.</p><p class="line">The very flower of us were they,</p><p class="line">The very flower, but yesterday!</p><p class="line">Yet now so pitiful they lie,</p><p class="line">Where love of country bade them hie</p><p class="line">To fight this fierce Caprice -- and die.</p><p class="line">All mangled now, where shells have burst,</p><p class="line">And lead and steel have done their worst;</p><p class="line">The tender tissues ploughed away,</p><p class="line">The years' slow processes effaced:</p><p class="line">The Mother of us all -- disgraced.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And some leave wives behind, young wives;</p><p class="line">Already some have launched new lives:</p><p class="line">A little daughter, little son --</p><p class="line">For thus this blundering world goes on.</p><p class="line">But never more will any see</p><p class="line">The old secure felicity,</p><p class="line">The kindnesses that made us glad</p><p class="line">Before the world went mad.</p><p class="line">They'll never hear another bird,</p><p class="line">Another gay or loving word --</p><p class="line">Those men who lie so cold and lone,</p><p class="line">Far in a country not their own;</p><p class="line">Those men who died for you and me,</p><p class="line">That England still might sheltered be</p><p class="line">And all our lives go on the same</p><p class="line">(Although to live is almost shame).</p></div><p class="byline">E. V. Lucas</p></body></html> · Great War