<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">To Women</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Your</span> hearts are lifted up, your hearts</p><p class="line">That have foreknown the utter price,</p><p class="line">Your hearts burn upward as a flame</p><p class="line">Of splendour and of sacrifice.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">For you, you too to battle go,</p><p class="line">Not with the marching drums and cheers,</p><p class="line">But in the watch of solitude</p><p class="line">And through the boundless night of fears.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Swift, swifter than those hawks of war,</p><p class="line">Those threatening wings that pulse the air,</p><p class="line">Far as the vanward ranks are set,</p><p class="line">You are gone before them, you are there!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And not a shot comes blind with death,</p><p class="line">And not a stab of steel is pressed</p><p class="line">Home, but invisibly it tore</p><p class="line">And entered first a woman's breast.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Amid the thunder of the guns,</p><p class="line">The lightning of the lance and sword,</p><p class="line">Your hope, your dread, your throbbing pride,</p><p class="line">Your infinite passion is outpoured</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">From hearts that are as one high heart</p><p class="line">Withholding naught from doom and bale,</p><p class="line">Burningly offered up -- to bleed,</p><p class="line">To bear, to break, but not to fail.</p></div><p class="byline">LAURENCE BINYON</p><em>Times, August</em> 20, 1914</body></html> · Great War