The Beginning....by Rudyard Kipling

The Beginning
(1914-18)
It was not part of their blood,
It came to them very late
With long arrears to make good,
When the English began to hate.

They were not easily moved,
They were icy-willing to wait
Till every count should be proved,
Ere the English began to hate.

Their voices were even and low,
Their eyes were level and straight.
There was neither sign nor show,
When the English began to hate.

It was not preached to the crowd,
It was not taught by the State.
No man spoke it aloud,
When the English began to hate.

It was not suddenly bred,
It will not swiftly abate,
Through the chill years ahead,
When Time shall count from the date
That the English began to hate.

Cry tears in the rain

Cry tears in the rain
From the dimmed glories of the past
from Agincourt and Crecy
from Blenheim and the Somme
look down on your country's last
agony of misery and pain
and cry tears in the rain

As you stood in warrior's steel
on Senlac Hill and Ypres
at Waterloo and Trafalgar
come back to us now
and see your dying strain
and cry tears in the rain

For the country you fought for
is dying more each day
You would not know it now
and if You came back
like us, You - our slain
Would cry tears in the rain

Eddy Morrison (May, 2010)