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BEFORE MARCHING

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he's the one that didn't come back the day the boys marched home, the band playing, the flags flying and all the mothers and sisters cheering and the fathers jumping up and down and shouting madly. He's the one the gold star is for on that flag that hangs in the Hall.

That's the one. The very one you know. He's every boy who went out when he was called and laid down his life in the struggle to carry through the duty that was his. Died doing his duty, the boy of America. The boy you saw every day. The boy who whistled and sang and played with you.

Remember him now?

That's the boy. For him the flag is lowered. For him the heads are uncovered. For him America proudly mourns. Her Unknown Son.


BEFORE MARCHING, AND AFTER

(In Memoriam: F. W. G.)

BY THOMAS HARDY

(September, 1915)

Orion swung southward aslant
Where the starved Egdon pine-trees had thinned,

The Pleiads aloft seemed to pant
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