November 1929
To-
To claim their meed of Victory.
From Kemmel Hill and Passchendael,
From crest and valley scorched with pain,
From stricken Arras and Bapaume,
And Cambrai and the fair Peronne
(That water-
From baron’s hall and peasant home
Long mingled in their dust, they rise
And sign to us with silent sweep
Of gesture, dumbly eloquent.
Anon before our wondering eyes
They call the soundless muster roll,
And swiftly dress their shattered ranks
With long familiar discipline.
The sun lights faintly on the whole
Array that stands so grimly still;
On gunners at their horses’ heads,
And infantry that lean at ease
On broken rifles, and the hill
Is thronged with officers that group
About the Chiefs they served of yore,
But silently. Unheard the call
That gives the sign from troop to troop.
The Legions start with rhythmic gait
To claim their meed of Victory.
Through Flanders, home of memories,
They pass. No clink of hoof or chain,
Nor echo of sharp-
Attends their coming home again.
But home again they march to-
In serried ranks through London streets,
And we shall stand in awe to see
The faces that we knew so gay
Look out to us, as who should say:
“Is it so long that we are dead,
That ye could not remember us?
Ye live and love and laugh: oh see
Our lonely, our forgotten bed
Of clay. We won the Victory
That ye enjoy. At least this day
We claim … no thing that gold can buy,
But memory, your memory!”