Thither our eyes are turned, our hearts are straining,
Where those we love, whose courage laughs at fear,
Amid the storm of steel around them raining,
Go to their death for all we hold most dear.
New-born of this supremest hour of trial,
In quiet confidence shall be our strength,
Fixed on a faith that will not take denial
Nor doubt that we have found our soul at length.
O England, staunch of nerve and strong of sinew,
Best when you face the odds and stand at bay;
Now show a watching world what stuff is in you!
Now make your soldiers proud of you to-day!
Of our soldiers we at home cannot be too proud, from Field-Marshal to
officer's servant. As one of Mr. Punch's correspondents at the front
writes: "Dawn to me hereafter will not be personified as a rosy-fingered
damsel or a lovely swift-footed deity, but as a sturdy little man in khaki,
crimson-eared with cold, heralded and escorted by frozen wafts of outer
air, bearing in one knobby fist a pair of boots, and in the other a tin mug
of black and smoking tea." As for the charities and courtesies of war, as
interpreted by our soldiers, Mr. Punch can wish for no better illustration
than in these lines on "The German graves":
I wonder are there roses still
In Ablain St. Nazaire,
And crosses girt with daffodil
In that old garden there.
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