Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO YOU WHO WENT, by ELIZABETH SEWELL HILL


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO YOU WHO WENT, by                    
First Line: Out on the quest, o you who went
Last Line: So fine the quest, we who are sent!
Subject(s): Heroism; Soldiers; Victory; War; Heroes; Heroines


Out on the quest, O you who went,
Out on the quest magnificent.
Out to the call and faring on
Up far wide fields in the great white dawn
Of a world's new day; with the student look
Lifted but late from the half-thumbed book—
The clean young page and the thought unsaid,
The leaf uncut and the page gone red.
Out to the call, O you who went,
And the call's dear cost, we who are sent—

The call's dear cost should ignorance guide,
Courting a fall should incompetence ride.
We, too, have dreams and we give them all
As we give them once does the splendid call.
And splendid the wash of ripe young blood;
And splendid the petty borne bravely, the mud;
And splendid the failing high faith. Hark, the drum!
Marching a million strong, we come
Out on the quest, we who are sent,
With our faith and our dreams to you who went.

And thine the call, O Humanity,
As thine the sweat and the agony.
And we shall win, so right is right
And God is God. And each hurt flight,
Each hell-swept field, each gulping sea
Is spelling out "Victory!" "Victory!"
By each white dawn's ooze, each death-sweat thin
Is building the blood-song, "We win!" "We win!"

So good our cause, O you who went!
So fine the quest, we who are sent!





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