Tomorrow

We to your story, game and smugness, do add
This death, our death. We to the clown commit
The glory given us; we to the further, after-breath
Of fame declare our dividend of fire, our mite
Of trampled ash. We to that cavernous place
You call "our time," commend an anger charged
To rip the face of worlds so simply snuggling in
Above our rotted heads; we to the wiley saviors
Send warning, sound a war's depth
That shall be a stop to their stuttering guns,
That shall be a sound which no battle's strut can scare.

We were your only decent war; we were answer, aim.
We were that rooted story, Man's game. We to your bare lands
Lend prestige, dead. We to others' sons spell glory.


-- Kenneth Patchen, from First Will and Testament (1939)