The Cause Author:Laurence Binyon Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: TO WOMEN Your hearts are lifted up, your hearts That have foreknown the utter price. Your hearts burn upward like a flame Of splendour and of sacrifice. F... more »or you, you too, to battle go, Not with the marching drums and cheers But in the watch of solitude And through the boundless night of fears. Swift, swifter than those hawks of war, Those threatening wings that pulse the air, Far as the vanward ranks are set, You are gone before them, you are there ! And not a shot comes blind with death And not a stab of steel is pressed Home, but invisibly it tore And entered first a woman's breast. Amid the thunder of the guns, The lightnings of the lance and sword Your hope, your dread, your throbbing pride, Your infinite passion is outpoured From hearts that are as one high heart Withholding naught from doom and bale, Burningly offered up, — to bleed, To bear, to break, but not to fail ! FOR THE FALLEN With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, Fallen in the cause of the free. Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres. There is music in the midst of desolation And a glory that shines upon our tears. They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, They fell with their faces to the foe. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more at familiar tables of home; They...« less