To My Brother
(In Memory of July 1, 1916)
Your battle-wounds are scars upon my heart,
Received when in that grand and tragic “show”
You played your part
Two years ago,
And silver in the summer morning sun
I see the symbol of your courage glow—
That Cross you won
Two years ago.
Though now again you watch the shrapnel fly,
And hear the guns that daily louder grow,
As in July
Two years ago,
May you endure to lead the Last Advance
And with your men pursue the flying foe
As once in France
Two years ago.
This poem is in the public domain.
Captain E. H. Brittain, M.C. Written four days before his death in action in the Austrian offensive on the Italian Front, June 15th, 1918.
Vera Brittain
Vera Brittain was born in 1893 in Staffordshire. She served as a nurse in the Voluntary Aid Detachment during World War I before publishing her first poetry collection, Verses of a V.A.D (Erskine Macdonald), in 1918. She died in London in 1970.