February 2007: Milan - “IL MONUMENTALE” - Soldiers XX

A Soldier’s Cemetery
Poem by John William Streets (killed and missing in action on 1 July 1916 aged 31)

"Behind that long and lonely trenched line
To which men come and go, where brave men die,
There is a yet unmarked and unknown shrine,
A broken plot, a soldier’s cemetery.
There lie the flower of youth, the men who scorn’d
To live (so died) when languished Liberty:
Across their graves flowerless and unadorned
Still scream the shells of each artillery.
When war shall cease this lonely unknown spot
Of many a pilgrimage will be the end,
And flowers will shine in this now barren plot
And fame upon it through the years descend:
But many a heart upon each simple cross
Will hang the grief, the memory of its loss."

See all set of pictures that illustrates this post at: http://travellingandboots.blogspot.com/2007/03/february-2007-milan-il-mon_117484993545504332.html