"We haven't any creed—for we never felt the need,—
And our morals are as ragged as can be;
But we finished in a way that has cleared us of the clay,
And we're coming to you clean, as you can see."
Then Peter looked below him with a smile upon his lips,
And he answered, "Ye are fighters, as I know
By your badges of the air, of the trenches, and the ships,
And the wounds that on your bodies glisten so."
And he looked upon the wounds, that were many and were grim,
And his glance was all-embracing—unafraid;
And he looked to meet the eyes that were smiling up to him,
All a-level as a new-forged blade.
"Ye are savage men and rough—from the fo'c'sle and the tent;
Ye have put High Heaven to alarm;
But I see it written clear by the road ye went,
That ye held by the Fifteenth Psalm."
And they shouted in return, "'Tis a thing we've never read,
But you passed our friends inside
That won to the end of the road we tread
Long ago when the Mons Men died."
"Let us in! Let us in! We have fallen for the Right,
And the Crown that we listed to win,
That we earned by the Somme or the waters of the Bight;
You're a fighting man yourself—Let us in!"
Then Peter gave a sign and the Gates flung wide
To the sound of a bugle-call:
"Pass the fighting men to the ranks inside,
Who came from the earth or the cold grey tide,
With their heads held high and a soldier's stride,
To a Friend in the Judgment Hall."