When you receive this letter I’ll be gone—

But know the blood I gave was of free will;

The battle nears its end, yet truth fair known,

Few hearts remain with boiling blood to spill.

There is no food, the water gone for days,

Proud uniforms the gauze that carnage binds;

The trenches are a muddy vermin’s maze

And young men’s whimpers haunt them like the winds:

Yet what is life if not some valiant cause,

Some distant triumph that we strive to claim?

Sound challenge that would give the mighty pause—

Where true hearts brave to bleed in freedom’s name?

Please do not shed a tear for me, don’t cry;

From first breath drawn, we are but born to die.