The Eleventh Hour Armistice Day 1937

They do not bid us to weep and to weep and be weeping for ever,
Soothing our own little hurt with the balm of our tears.
They do not ask us to suffer. Pain passes, and sorrow may never
Endure thro’ the levelling years.
Grief fades, and all poor gifts grief has to offer,
As fades the loveliness of leaf and flower
From the bright wreath that here again we proffer
In this Eleventh Hour.

Is it enough that we pray, that we weep and in weeping remember
Briefly their pride and their passing; so, closing the book,
Clasp it and lay it aside till another returning November?
Have we had courage to look
With a clear gaze on the stern dead-young faces
Peering ever out of the yellowing page,
Asking ever: “Who comes? Who steps to our places?
Who, in this clamorous age?”

Is it enough? In the Silence, the gloom, and the heads lowly bending,
The lorn Last Post and the grieving bugle’s wail;
So, having done, back again to our planning, our getting and spending —
Shall this alone avail?
They do not seek for gloom. Tears have we given,
A fading wreath lain on eternal stone.
Ours is the wreath, but theirs the rock unriven
Raised naked and alone.

When we remember then let us remember the picture completely;
Not only death and its star-bright diadem.
Memory mellowed by years, be it ever so sweetly,
Does not suffice to them.
Boys, if you will, but dimly comprehending
All they had gained unto their people’s good;
In their eleventh hour, our faith defending,
They gave us nationhood.

Think, if you must, of their youth, of their innocence, shining and splendid,
Cheated, deluded by dreams of the glory before—
Dreams of romantic adventure so soon to be blasted and ended
In the unreason of war.
They had yet other dreams that found no ending
In death, nor time nor death may ever mock.
In their eleventh hour, past all pretending,
They raised for us this Rock.

We have been given a trust that demands of us more than our sorrow,
More than our prayers or our praise of the flesh that is dust.
The spirit must live; and no pledge for tomorrow and ever tomorrow
May put away the trust.
All that they suffered grew light with that ultimate leaven,
Their vision of brotherhood, nationhood lifting to flower.
Ours the stern duty to nurture, see to it, even
In the Eleventh Hour.

“C. J. Dennis”
Herald, 11 November 1937, p6