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<h3> CROSSES </h3>
<p class="poem">
All your broken war-spent heroes,<br/>
Lord of War and Grief—you pay<br/>
With a cross of moulded iron,<br/>
Hard-wrought iron cold and grey.<br/>
On the Somme you grant five thousand<br/>
And five thousand at Verdun;<br/>
At the dawn of day you count them<br/>
And at setting of the sun.<br/>
On the trampled fields of Flanders,<br/>
On the bitter roads of France,<br/>
Where the big guns chant their war-songs,<br/>
And the crimson death-lights dance,<br/>
There you count the iron crosses<br/>
Of such high and far renown,—-<br/>
Grim and grey the men who win them—<br/>
Theirs the cross—and yours the crown;—<br/></p>
<p class="poem">
<SPAN STYLE="letter-spacing: 4em">*****</SPAN><br/></p>
<p class="poem">
But the little wooden crosses<br/>
You have given the peaceful dead,<br/>
O the little wooden crosses,<br/>
By each young low-lying head,—<br/>
Though the tender grasses hide them,<br/>
Or they fall beneath the snows,<br/>
Not a cross shall be forgotten,—<br/>
God Himself has counted those.<br/></p>
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