Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries

[mme_n_b]

These, in the day when heaven was falling,

The hour when earth's foundations fled,

Followed their mercenary calling,

And took their wages, and are dead.



Their shoulders held the sky suspended;

They stood, and earth's foundations stay;

What God abandoned, these defended,

And saved the sum of things for pay.



A.E. Housman


A stop on the road from Kipling's Wage Slaves to Owen's Dulce et Decorum :(