| "The young soldiers do not
speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night
and when the clock counts.
They say: We are young. We have died. Remember
us.
They say: We have done what we could but until
it is finished it is not done.
They say: We have given our lives but until it
is finished no one can know what our lives gave.
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours;
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths are
for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot
say; it is you who must say this.
They say: We leave you our deaths. Give them
their meaning. We were young. they say. We have
died. Remember us. "
The Gates of Prayer,
1975 |
