By all we wrought and all we said,
Make thy sons worthy of their dead.
We tore thy breast with steel and flame;
And in the hate that brimmed to flood,
Hard-smiting in thy holy name
We drenched the fields with brother-blood.
By that wild tempest hot and red,
Oh, make us worthy of our dead!
The pain, the wrath, the shame, the scorn
Are passing like the clouded night;
The promise of the growing morn
Is golden in the people's sight.
What thought is here that we should dread
If we be worthy of our dead?
There comes no challenge loud and vain,
No vaulting of unchastened pride;
No kingcraft fills a world with pain
That wrong of might be deified.
Oh, not in vain the millions bled
If we be worthy of our dead!
The little voices faint and fail;
A grander music fills our ears.
Only in dreams we hear the wail
Far-rising from the murdered years,
While the new days lift up their head,
Worthy of us and of our dead.
