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We little dreamed how much he loved his country and her flag;
About the glorious Stars and Stripes we’d never heard him brag.
But he was first to volunteer, while brilliant men demurred,
He took the oath of loyalty without a faltering word,
And then we found that he could talk, for one remembered night,
There came a preaching pacifist denouncing men who fight,
And he got up in uniform and looked at him and said:
“I wonder if you ever think about our soldiers dead.
All that you are today you owe some soldier in his grave;
If he had been afraid to fight, you still would be a slave.”
If he had died a year ago beneath a peaceful sky,
Unjust our memory would have been; of him our tongues would lie.
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