It was always, first, blue:
Young, breathless, free
The blue of sinless skies;
A riot of sturdy yearning.
And always, second, yellow:
Thirsty, tender, full of promise
The yellow of cloudless noonday sun;
A hue of good things destined to be.
But a menacing hiss of red
Did destroy our proud flag.
Thus violated, thus sodden,
Our colours called out to us
And bid us in courage to stand.
This earnest blue
Now darkened with bleeding;
This bashful yellow
Now stricken with bile;
Seem now to us emblems of eternity
Unperturbed by the arrows that fly by day
And the pestilence that stalks by night
Summoning us to courage, courage,
Courage. For these tainted days shall pass
But O my country and my countrymen:
Ours is the earth and the sky above it
Ours is the earth and the men buried in it.
