The Roll of Honour
These were my friends - ah stay and tell agin
Those lovely names! - The grave voice passes on;
The lantern searching through the field of dead
Lights one by one the sleepers, and is gone.
Yet not at once the darkness covers them;
Then only falls the night, when men forget.
O careless friends, O passionate swift eyes,
Dear friends who loved me, you are with me yet.
Coming unshaken by the years, your feet
Still eager on the track, those eyes alight,
With tales upon your lips, as children tell
The rich hours over ere they say good-night.
You are names now; - but not as other names,
That live an instant when a man is dead
In old folks' thoughts, or crumble with the years
Chiselled on stone above the muffled head; -
You perish not! When we and ours are swept
Unnumbered waves upon the one dark tide,
Sons of our sons shall keep this festival,
And praise and ponder on the men who died.
P.H.B. Lyon
