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| FROM a vision red with war I awoke and saw the Prince of Peace hovering over No Man’s Land. | |
| Loud the whistles blew and the thunder of cannon was drowned by the happy shouting of the people. | |
| From the Sinai that faces Armageddon I heard this chant from the throats of white-robed angels: | |
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| Blow your trumpets, little children! | |
| From the East and from the West, | 5 |
| From the cities in the valley, | |
| From God’s dwelling on the mountain, | |
| Blow your blast that Peace might know | |
| She is Queen of God’s great army. | |
| With the crying blood of millions | 10 |
| We have written deep her name | |
| In the Book of all the Ages; | |
| With the lilies in the valley, | |
| With the roses by the Mersey, | |
| With the golden flower of Jersey | 15 |
| We have crowned her smooth young temples. | |
| Where her footsteps cease to falter | |
| Golden grain will greet the morning, | |
| Where her chariot descends | |
| Shall be broken down the altars | 20 |
| Of the gods of dark disturbance. | |
| Nevermore shall men know suffering, | |
| Nevermore shall women wailing | |
| Shake to grief the God of Heaven. | |
| From the East and from the West, | 25 |
| From the cities in the valley, | |
| From God’s dwelling on the mountain, | |
| Little children, blow your trumpets! | |
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| From Ethiopia, groaning ’neath her heavy burdens, I heard the music of the old slave songs. | |
| I heard the wail of warriors, dusk brown, who grimly fought the fight of others in the trenches of Mars. | 30 |
| I heard the plea of blood-stained men of dusk and the crimson in my veins leapt furiously. | |
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| Forget not, O my brothers, how we fought | |
| In No Man’s Land that peace might come again! | |
| Forget not, O my brothers, how we gave | |
| Red blood to save the freedom of the world! | 35 |
| We were not free, our tawny hands were tied; | |
| But Belgium’s plight and Serbia’s woes we shared | |
| Each rise of sun or setting of the moon. | |
| So when the bugle blast had called us forth | |
| We went not like the surly brute of yore | 40 |
| But, as the Spartan, proud to give the world | |
| The freedom that we never knew nor shared. | |
| These chains, O brothers mine, have weighed us down | |
| As Samson in the temple of the gods; | |
| Unloosen them and let us breathe the air | 45 |
| That makes the goldenrod the flower of Christ. | |
| For we have been with thee in No Man’s Land, | |
| Through lake of fire and down to Hell itself; | |
| And now we ask of thee our liberty, | |
| Our freedom in the land of Stars and Stripes. | 50 |
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| I am glad that the Prince of Peace is hovering over No Man’s Land. | |
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