"A Consecration"

by John Masefield

Not of the princes and prelates with periwigged charioteers,
Riding triumphantly laureled to lap the fat of the years,
Rather the scorned -- the rejected -- the men hemmed with spears.

The men in tattered battalion which fights till it dies,
Dazed with the dust of the battle, the din and the cries,
The men with the broken heads and blood running into their eyes.

Not the bemedalled Commander, beloved of throne,
Riding cock-horse to parade when the bugles are blown,
But the lads who carried the hill and cannot be known.

Others may sing of the wine and the wealth and the mirth,
The portly presence of potentates goodly in girth; --
Mine be the dirt and the dross, the dust and the scum of the earth!

Theirs be the music, the colour, the glory, the gold;
Mine be a handful of ashes, a mouthful of mould.
Of the maimed, of the halt and the blind in the rain and the cold --

Of these shall my songs be fashioned, my tale be told. Amen.