A Sabbath Poem (Chaplin)
DARE NOT SPEAK
~ by Ralph Chaplin (conscientious objector during WWI)
Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie,
Dust unto dust—
The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die
As all men must;
Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell,
Too strong to strive—
Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,
Buried alive;
But rather mourn the apathetic throng,
The coward and the meek—
Who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong
And dare not speak.
