Spare not thy pity--Life is strong and fair for you-- City by the waterside, homestead on the plain. Keep ye remembrance, keep ye a place for us-- So all the bitterness of dying be not vain. Oh, be ye mindful, mindful of our honor’s name; Oh, be ye careful of the word ye speak in jest-- For we have bled for you; for we have died for you-- Yea, we have given, we have given our best.
Life that we might have lived, love that we might have loved, Sorrow of all sorrows, we have drunk thy bitter lees. Speak thou a word to us, here in our narrow beds-- Word of thy mourning lands beyond the Seas. Lo, we have paid the price, paid the cost of Victory. Do not forget, when the rest shall homeward come-- Mother of our childhood, sister of our manhood days, Loved of our heavy hearts, whom we have left alone.
Hark to the guns--pause and turn, and think of us-- Red was our life’s blood, and heavy was the cost. But ye have Nationhood, but ye are a people strong-- Oh, have ye love for the brothers ye have lost? Oh, by the blue skies, clear beyond the mountain tops, Oh, by the dear, dun plains where we were bred,-- What be your tokens, tokens that ye grieve for us, Tokens of your Sorrowing for we that be Dead?
Past the marching men, where the great road runs, Out of burning Ypres the pale women came: One was a widow (listen to the guns!)-- She wheeled a heaped-up barrow. One walked lame And dragged two little children at her side Tired and coughing with the dust. The third Nestled a dead child on her breast and tried To suckle him. They never spoke a word.
So they came down along the Ypres road. A soldier stayed his mirth to watch them pass, Turned and in silence helped them with their load, And led them to a field and gave them bread. I saw them hide their faces in the grass And cry, as women might when Christ was dead.
Song of the west wind whispering--listen The murmuring waves of the golden grain; The lisp of rivers that ripple and glisten, Filled to brim with the night’s wild rain, Seaward going to come again, Pouring the torrents of spring on the acres Fallow and fertile. The wide world’s bread Harvested now by the busy rakers, Gleaners afield when the dawn is red; Wind of the west, where the leaning sheaves Darken the shadows as daylight leaves Or heap the granary under the eaves, Sing the song to us over and over, Happy harvests and multifold, Sweeter than breath of thyme or clover, Western wind over sheaves of gold!