Once there were hills in a golden sheen;
and valleys of rainbows and trees like lovers
plighting their troth with a benediction of
fragrant breezes at the closing of dusk.
And the tears of young fairies after such ceremonies
transformed into golden dew on young rosy mornings.
Once the laughter of children rang over hills and resounded in valleys,
and echoes are caught there eternally.
Once the Piper came over the hills in a bloody sunset like an omen
and his music preceded him.
His tunes haunted and charmed and called,
and the children of the hills and valleys rose and followed him.
In khaki they followed him; trains bore them away;
and the houses and the hills and valleys stood in a desolation
of silence, but the echoes sound still faintly.
We keep faith.
Now there are hills dappled in blood, and valleys of fire and trenches of men
who were children in hills and valleys yesterday.
Now there are men seeking death in the grey hours
between dusk and dawn; and the stench of smoke as ascending from a funeral pyre;
and now the cries of men, the groans of the children of yesterday,
rise from the trenches and the sodden tracks
and the sound of agony is caught there eternally.
Now the Piper lurks in the shadows and in the midnight watches,
playing eerie lullabies on an old reed,
reaching ears dulled by the incessant noise of shelling and gunfire
and his tunes are now only echoes of the ideals that reside in those hills and valleys,
where lovers once plighted their troth in peace.
Now mothers and wives and lovers and friends wait in silent houses
and listen to echoes sounding faintly, and children still
rise and follow the Piper, and the glory of the departed is broadcast.
But here in smoking trenches and tracks of blood,
anger consumes ideals, and hatred destroys humanity;
and we fight a battle to conquer shadows as well as armies;
and where the clear colours of our youth are blurred
where right and wrong seem indistinct
where a child's clear memories are dimmed and sullied in the darkness of the present,
We keep faith.
When the guns are silent and the fires dwindle over the plains,
there will be men on trains and stations.
Men with scars and grey faces, lines and grey hairs,
on crutches, blind and deaf, dreaming of smoking hills, and the sound of agony
caught in those trenches, eternally.
There will be hills and valleys and houses that stand still silent,
because their children lie under crosses and shadows of crosses.
Yet there will be gratitude for an end, for freedom, for loved ones,
for meetings on train stations, for homes no longer silent
for human hearts capable of healing and loving and faith.
And if we keep faith for the host of tomorrows that come,
we will find a way out of shadows.
We may find the Piper vanished, we may find night turning into morning,
We may find doubt turning into faith.
And we will go back to hills and valleys and homes,
and the places of yesterday will be filled again with laughter, caught there eternally.
And we will keep faith.