Not with deserters from the battle
That tears my land do I belong,
To their coarse praise I do not listen.
They shall not have from me one song.
Poor exile, you are like a prisoner
To me, or one upon the bed
Of sickness. Dark your road, O wanderer,
Of wormwood smacks your alien bread.
Here, into smoking fires that blacken
Our lives, the last of youth we throw,
Who in the years behind us never
Sought to evade a single blow.
We know that in the final reckoning
No hour will need apology;
No people in the world are prouder,
More tearless, simpler, than are we.
[1923]