Dare Not Speak?

Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie,
Dust unto dust—
The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die
As all men must;

Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell,
Too strong to strive—
Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,
Buried alive;

But rather mourn the apathetic throng,
The coward and the meek—
Who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong
And dare not speak.

Ralph Chaplin was a conscientious objector during World War I.