REFLECTIONS

"The young dead soldiers do not speak.

Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard
them?

They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock
counts.

They say: We were young. We have died. Remember us.

They say: We have done what we could but until it is finished it is
not done.

They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can
know what our lives gave.

They say: Our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean
what you make them.

They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new
hope or for nothing we cannot say; it is you who must say this.

They say: We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.

We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us."

Archibald Macleish...