No Men Are Foreign By James Falconer Kirkup
Remember, no men
are strange, no countries foreign
Beneath all
uniforms, a single body breathes
Like ours: the land
our brothers walk upon
Is earth like this,
in which we all shall lie.
They, too, aware of
sun and air and water,
Are fed by peaceful
harvests, by war’s long winter starv’d.
Their hands are
ours, and in their lines we read
A labour not different
from our own.
Remember they have
eyes like ours that wake
Or sleep, and
strength that can be won
By love. In every
land is common life
That all can
recognise and understand.
Let us remember,
whenever we are told
To hate our
brothers, it is ourselves
That we shall
dispossess, betray, condemn.
Remember, we who
take arms against each other
It is the human
earth that we defile.
Our hells of fire
and dust outrage the innocence
Of air that is
everywhere our own,
Remember,
no men are foreign, and no countries strange.
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