"Per Ardua"

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"They that have climbed the white mists of the morning;

They that have soared, before the world's awake,

To herald up their foeman to them, scorning

The thin dawn's rest their weary folk might take;

Some that have left other mouths to tell the story

Of high, blue battle, quite young limbs that bled,

How they had thundered up the clouds to glory,

Or fallen to an English field stained red.

Because my faltering feet would fail I find them

Laughing beside me, steadying the hand

That seeks their deadly courage –

Yet behind them

The cold light dies in that once brilliant Land ....

Do these, who help the quickened pulse run slowly,

Whose stern, remembered image cools the brow,

Till the far dawn of Victory, know only

Night's darkness, and Valhalla's silence now?" ...

"Per Ardua" - by: John Gillespie Magee, Jr. 

This poem was unfinished at the time of Magee's death... and possibly his last.

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