War and Peace

Home they brought her warrior dead.

 

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rained a ghastly dew

 

Till the war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were furled

 

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

 

So all day long the noise of battle rolled

 

Half a league, half a league,

 

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’

 

A plague o’ both your houses!

 

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot

 

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

 

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,

 

This day is called the feast of Crispian:

 

He which hath no stomach to this fight,

 

O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts.

 

If we are marked to die, we are enow

 

Upon the king! let us our lives, our souls,

 

I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle; for how can they charitably dispose of any thing when blood is their argument?

 

The game’s afoot:

 

When we have matched our rackets to these balls,

 

Can this cockpit hold

 

It is a period between two wars—the long week-end it has been called.

 

I am Goya of the bare field, by the enemy’s beak gouged till the craters of my eyes gape I am grief I am the tongue of war, the embers of cities on the snows of the year 1941 I am hunger

 

The dead will think the living are worth it we will know Who we are And we will all enlist again.

 

So all day long the noise of battle roll’d Among the mountains by the winter sea.