<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">"Any Friend to Any Friend"</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Ev'n</span> as I thought of you your soul had sped,</p><p class="line">Friend of old, happy, far-off boyhood days,</p><p class="line">And, as across the sea I turned my gaze,</p><p class="line">The soil of France with your brave blood was red!</p><p class="line">Blame not the shears that slit the thin yarn thread.</p><p class="line">Though life be lost, immortal is the praise!</p><p class="line">Would I were with you crowned with victory's bays,</p><p class="line">O Happy Warrior 'midst our English dead!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Yea! God of Battles, what a time to die!</p><p class="line">Thy Courts are echoing to the tuck of drum,</p><p class="line">The wide days flame with comet souls that fly</p><p class="line">Triumphant, at a bound, from Earth to Heaven,</p><p class="line">The nights ablaze, with their white passage riven,</p><p class="line">As, trailing clouds of glory, swift they come.</p></div><p class="byline">-- H. W. Bliss.</p></body></html> · Great War