Their carven words all testify
Of then and now and future time
That these were they who kept the cause
Was given them by fathers past
And living still in coursing blood.
They token men
True to lineage.
To sons they left high honour and the land,
A legacy of action speaking still.
Let stone forever warn
The men who sit in marble halls
That sires are only seeming dead.
They hover near in grey embattled lines
Beneath thorn pennon’s scarlet flash;
And principles remain
Beyond their flesh and ours,
Beyond the stone.
Memorial Day, 2021
