In War 



" Peace, peace, we wrong our noble dead 



To vex their solemn slumber so ; 



But childless and with thorn-crowned head 



Up the steep road must England go I " 



We have here the same motive, the 

 same lesson, which Byron applies to 

 Rome : 



" The Niobe of Nations there she stands, 



Crownless and childless in her voiceless woe, 

 An empty urn within her withered hands, 

 Whose sacred dust was scattered long ago I " 



It suggests the inevitable end of all 

 empire, of all dominion of man over man 

 by force of arms. More than all who 

 fall in battle or are wasted in the camps, 

 the nation misses the " fair women and 

 brave men " who should have been the 

 descendants of the strong and the 

 manly. If we may personify the spirit 

 of the nation, it grieves most not over 

 its " unreturning brave/' but over those 

 who might have been, but never were, 



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