Classic and Contemporary Poetry
FROM THE YOUTH OF ALL NATIONS, by H. C. HARWOOD First Line: Think not, my elders, to rejoice Last Line: And swift usurping dynasties. Subject(s): Death; World War I; Dead, The; First World War | ||||||||
Think not, my elders, to rejoice When from the nations' wreck we rise, With a new thunder in our voice And a new lightning in our eyes. You called with patriotic sneers, And drums and sentimental songs. We came from out the vernal years Thus bloodily to right your wrongs. The sins of many centuries, Sealed by your indolence and fright, Have earned us these our agonies: The thunderous appalling night, When from the lurid darkness came The pains of poison and of shell, The broken heart, the world's ill-fame, The lonely arrogance of hell. Faintly, as from a game afar, Your wrangles and your patronage Come drifting to the work of war Which you have made our heritage. Oh, chide us not. Not ours the crime. Oh, praise us not. It is not won, The fight which we shall make sublime Beneath an unaccustomed sun. The simple world of childhood fades Beyond the Styx that all have passed; This is a novel land of shades, Wherein no ancient glories last. A land of desolation blurred By mists of penitence and woe, Where every hope must be deferred And every river backward flow. Not on this grey and ruined plain Shall we obedient recall Your cities to rebuild again For their inevitable fall. We kneel at no ancestral shrine. With admirable blasphemy We desecrate the old divine And dream a new eternity. Destroy the history of men, The weary cycle of decay. We shall not pass that way again, We tread a new untrodden way. Though scattered wider yet our youth On every sea and continent, There shall come bitter with the truth A fraction of the sons you sent. When slowly with averted head, Some darkly, some with halting feet, And bowed with mourning for the dead We walk the cheering, fluttering street, A music terrible, austere Shall rise from our returning ranks To change your merriment to fear, And slay upon your lips your thanks; And on the brooding, weary brows Of stronger sons, close enemies, Are writ the ruin of your house And swift usurping dynasties. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...D'ANNUNZIO by ERNEST HEMINGWAY 1915: THE TRENCHES by CONRAD AIKEN TO OUR PRESIDENT by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE HORSES by KATHARINE LEE BATES CHILDREN OF THE WAR by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE U-BOAT CREWS by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE RED CROSS NURSE by KATHARINE LEE BATES WAR PROFITS by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE UNCHANGEABLE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN VASHTI by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON |
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