<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">From the Youth of All Nations</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Think</span> not, my elders, to rejoice</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">When from the nations' wreck we rise,</p><p class="line">With a new thunder in our voice</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And a new lightning in our eyes.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">You called with patriotic sneers,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And drums and sentimental songs.</p><p class="line">We came from out the vernal years</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Thus bloodily to right your wrongs.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The sins of many centuries,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Sealed by your indolence and fright,</p><p class="line">Have earned us these our agonies:</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The thunderous appalling night</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">When from the lurid darkness came</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The pains of poison and of shell,</p><p class="line">The broken heart, the world's ill-fame,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The lonely arrogance of hell.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Faintly, as from a game afar,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Your wrangles and your patronage</p><p class="line">Come drifting to the work of war</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Which you have made our heritage.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Oh, chide us not. Not ours the crime.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Oh, praise us not. It is not won,</p><p class="line">The fight which we shall make sublime</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Beneath an unaccustomed sun.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The simple world of childhood fades</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Beyond the Styx that all have passed;</p><p class="line">This is a novel land of shades,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Wherein no ancient glories last.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">A land of desolation, blurred</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">By mists of penitence and woe,</p><p class="line">Where every hope must be deferred</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And every river backward flow.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Not on this grey and ruined plain</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Shall we obedient recall</p><p class="line">Your cities to rebuild again</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">For their inevitable fall.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">We kneel at no ancestral shrine.</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">With admirable blasphemy</p><p class="line">We desecrate the old divine</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And dream a new eternity.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Destroy the history of men,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">The weary cycle of decay.</p><p class="line">We shall not pass that way again,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">We tread a new untrodden way.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Though scattered wider yet our youth</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">On every sea and continent,</p><p class="line">There shall come bitter with the truth</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">A fraction of the sons you sent.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">When slowly with averted head,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Some darkly, some with halting feet,</p><p class="line">And bowed with mourning for the dead</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">We walk the cheering, fluttering street,</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">A music terrible, austere</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Shall rise from our returning ranks</p><p class="line">To change your merriment to fear,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And slay upon your lips your thanks;</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And on the brooding weary brows</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Of stronger sons, close enemies,</p><p class="line">Are writ the ruin of your house</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And swift usurping dynasties.</p></div><p class="byline">-- H. C. Harwood.</p></body></html> · Great War