From “A Canadian Twilight”
Oh, to have died that day at Langemarck!
To have perished nobly in a noble cause!
..........
For in the years to come it shall be told
How these laid down their lives, not for their homes,
Their orchards, fields and cities: “They were driven
To slaughter by no tyrant’s lust for power;
Of their free manhood’s choice they crossed the sea
To save a stricken people from its foe.
They died for Justice—Justice owes them this:
That what they died for be not overthrown.”
ABernard Freeman Trotter
From “A Canadian Twilight and Other Poems of War and Peace”—By permission of McClelland & Stewart, Ltd., Publishers, Toronto