C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Amelia Josephine Burr (1878–1968)

NOT the muffled drums for him

Nor the wailing of the fife.

Trumpets blaring to the charge

Were the music of his life.

Let the music of his death

Be the feet of marching men;

Let his heart a thousandfold

Take the field again.

Of his patience, of his calm,

Of his quiet faithfulness,

England, raise your hero’s cairn!

He is worthy of no less.

Stone by stone, in silence laid,

Singly, surely, let it grow.

He whose living was to serve,

Would have had it so.

There’s a body drifting down

For the mighty sea to keep.

There’s a spirit cannot die

While a heart is left to leap

In the land he gave his all,

Steel alike to praise and hate.

He has saved the life he spent,

Death has struck too late.

Not the muffled drums for him,

Nor the wailing of the fife—

Trumpets blaring to the charge

Were the music of his life.

Let the music of his death

Be the feet of marching men!

Let his heart a thousandfold

Take the field again!