We

We who have come back from the war,
And stand upright and draw full breath,
Seek boldly what life holds in store
And eat its whole fruit rind and core,
Before we enter through the door
To keep our rendezvous with death.

We who have walked with death in France,
When all the world with death was rife,
Who came through all that devils' dance,
When life was but a circumstance,
A sniper's whim, a bullet's glance,
We have a rendezvous with life!

With life that hurtles like a spark
From stricken steel where anvils chime,
That leaps the space from dark to dark,
A blinding, blazing, flaming arc,
As clean as fire, and frank and stark—
White life that lives while there is time.

We will not live by musty creeds,
Who learned the truth through love and war,
Who tipped the scales for right by deeds,
When old men's lies were broken reeds,
We follow where the cold fact leads
And bow our heads no more.

Deliver us from tactless kin,
And drooling bores that start "reforms,"
And unctious folk that prate of sin,
And theorists without a chin,
And politicians out to win,
And generals in uniforms

We have come back who broke the line
The hard Hun held by bomb and knife!
All but the blind can read the sign;
The time is ours by right divine,
Who drank with Death in blood red wine,
We have a rendezvous with life!