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Home  »  A Treasury of War Poetry  »  The War Films

George Herbert Clarke, ed. (1873–1953). A Treasury of War Poetry. 1917.

Henry Newbolt

The War Films

O LIVING pictures of the dead,

O songs without a sound,

O fellowship whose phantom tread

Hallows a phantom ground—

How in a gleam have these revealed

The faith we had not found.

We have sought God in a cloudy Heaven,

We have passed by God on earth:

His seven sins and his sorrows seven,

His wayworn mood and mirth,

Like a ragged cloak have hid from us

The secret of his birth.

Brother of men, when now I see

The lads go forth in line,

Thou knowest my heart is hungry in me

As for thy bread and wine;

Thou knowest my heart is bowed in me

To take their death for mine.