<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">"An Unknown British Soldier'</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">TIS just a little wooden cross</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In lonely grandeur there</p><p class="line">That smiles upon a rugged mound</p><p class="line">Of weedy, unattended ground,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">For he was no man's care.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">A broken bayonet marked the spot</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And troops would turn aside,</p><p class="line">Till loving hands rough cast the wood</p><p class="line">And shaped a cross, emblem of blood.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">To tell where he had died.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">He died unowned, for none could tell</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The silent hero's name:</p><p class="line">They saw the bloody wounds he bore.</p><p class="line">The shattered limbs, but nothing more.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And knew not whence he came.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"An unknown British soldier"—that</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Was all that they could say.</p><p class="line">'Twas not for them to wet the eye,</p><p class="line">Why lives a soldier but to die?</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And so they went their way.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">But I may pause and probe his heart</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Before the shadow fell,</p><p class="line">And think that he had still a prayer</p><p class="line">For those frail souls who soon would share</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The moment black as Hell.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The flowers had bloomed when last I looked.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The grass was freshly mown:</p><p class="line">A shapely cross so chastely white</p><p class="line">Shone in the dazzling noonday light.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Yet still the same "Unknown."</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Unknown! Ah, no! thy name still lives,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">For One had seen thee fall</p><p class="line">And marked the sacrifice thus made.</p><p class="line">The debt of love so nobly paid.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Faithful to Freedom's call.</p></div><p>France, August, 1917.</p></body></html> · Great War