Here you will find the Poem For Valour of poet John Le Gay Brereton
Hail to you, comrades, who have won, Where the torn lines of battle run By tattered town and ruined mead, The honour that men give with pride To those who, daffing death aside, Have done the valorous deed. And has the war, then, brought to birth, As flowers that spring from western earth At summons of the pelting rain, The courage that can force its way, And hold the shadowing wings at bay, And smile at lingering pain? And is it true that only now Life lifts from her heroic brow The smothering shroud of deadly peace, And laughs to sniff the morning air, And bids a thousand bonfires flare The news of her release? Hell?s throat may swallow down its lie, For men knew how to live and die And take the gifts of motley fate, Before the fiends of fear and greed, Clasping, engendered from their seed The hissing brood of hate. Are they not sightless fools who crave The sombre splendours of the grave To prove that man is more than dust; Who dabble fingers in the side Of him who lives because he died, Believing, when they must?
