OCR Text |
Show "ARMISTICE DRf I heard a cry in the night from a far-flung hot. From a holt that sleeps through the years the last long sleep. By the Mouse, by the Marne, in the Ar- gonne's shattered wood. In a thousand rote-thronged churchyards through our land. I,, Sleep! Do they sleep! I know I heard their cry, W Shrilling along the night like a trumpet blast: "We died," they cried, "for a dream. Have sa ye forgot? We dreamed of a world reborn whence wars had Bed, Where swords were broken in pieces and guns were nist, Where the poor dwelt in quiet, the rich in Ba peace. And children played in the streets, joyous ta and free. .We thought we could sleep content in a task well done; Hi But the rumble of guns rolls over us, iron upon iron Sounds from the forge where are fashioned guns anew; New fleets spring up In new seas, and under the wave Stealthy new terrors swarm, with emboweled em-boweled death. Fresh cries of hate ring out loud from a demagog's throat, While greed reaches out afresh to grasp new lands. " "Have we died in vain, in vain? Is our dream denied? Yon men who live on the earth we bought ttal with our woe, feg. Will ye stand idly by while they shape new wars. Or will ye rise, who are strong, to fulfill our dream, Hi To silence the demagog's voice, to crush fay, the fools jag Who play with blood-stained toys that crowd new graves? We call, we call on the night, will ye hear and heed?" a In the name of our dead will we hear? 41 Will we grant them sleep? A The poem is by William E. Brooks, and can be found in an anthology, "The New Patriotism," edited by Thomas Curtis Clark and Esther A. Gillespie. It is a fitting message mes-sage for the season of loving and admiring recollection which finds its culminating ob-sevance ob-sevance nn Armistice day. . It -111 f! s , -vv4 The American cemetery at Belleau woods where hundreds of American soldiers are buried. It was shrine for the visiting American Legionnaires who visited Paris to attend the American Legion convention. |