THE SOUL OF A NATION

It did not seem an unknown warrior whose body came on a gun carriage
down Whitehall, where we were waiting for him. He was known to us all.
It was one of "our boys" (not warriors), as we called them in the days
of darkness lit by faith.

To some women, weeping a little in the crowd after an all-night vigil,
he was their boy who went missing one day and was never found till now,
though their souls went searching for him through the dreadful places
in the night.

To many men among those packed densely on each side of the empty street
wearing ribbons and badges on civil clothes, he was a familiar figure,
one of their comrades, the one they liked best, perhaps, in the old
crowd who into the fields of death went and stayed there with a great
companionship.