Remember This by William P. Smith, Jr., Lincoln Battalion
Remember This, William P. Smith, Jr., Lincoln Battalion
The Volunteer for Liberty, V. 1, No. 9, August 9, 1937
REMEMBER THIS
I’ve heard you sobbing in the night
And know your fears are not for fright
But for the dead. Those Comrades lost
Who through this day have fought beside you all this way
Beneath the sun’s half blinding heat,
Until the fell upon this wheat, beside these olive trees
In all this hell sound and thirst,
The whining steel and blinding burst of bomb and shell;
The still came on.
With blistered feet and shoulders beat,
With vagrant thoughts that often went to home and peace
And we must weep. For Oliver and Jack we could not keep,
Nor can we get them back.
I cannot say that they’ve been torn
To some far place and there reborn to lie again;
But mark you this –they still live on –as men.
For we must take the strength they leave
And to the goal they set must cleave
With ever greater unity –
“All men shall now be FREE.”
I hear you sobbing in the night,
