Remember This by William P. Smith, Jr., Lincoln Battalion

October 4, 2018
By

Old Volunteer Logo

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Remember This, William P. Smith, Jr., Lincoln Battalion

The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 1, No. 9, August 9, 1937

 

REMEMBER THIS

I’ve heard you sobbing in the night

And know your fears are not for fright

But for the dead. Those Comrades lost

Who through this day have fought beside you all this way

 

Beneath the sun’s half blinding heat,

Until the fell upon this wheat, beside these olive trees

In all this hell sound and thirst,

The whining steel and blinding burst of bomb and shell;

The still came on.

With blistered feet and shoulders beat,

With vagrant thoughts that often went to home and peace

 

And we must weep. For Oliver and Jack we could not keep,

 

Nor can we get them back.

I cannot say that they’ve been torn

To some far place and there reborn to lie again;

But mark you this –they still live on –as men.

For we must take the strength they leave

And to the goal they set must cleave

With ever greater unity –

“All men shall now be FREE.”

 

I hear you sobbing in the night,

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