Omdat een mens niet altijd moet wachten tot het dag van de poëzie is!

What voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera! When thy bridge I cross’d?
“‘Tis better to have fought and lost
Than never to have fought at all!”

The tricolour — a trampled rag
Lies, dirt and dust; the lines I track
By sentry boxes, yellow-black,
Lead up to no Italian flag.

I see the Croat soldier stand
Upon the grass of your redoubts;
The eagle with his black wings flouts
The breadth and beauty of your land.

Yet not in vain, although in vain,
O men of Brescia! on the day
Of loss past hope I heard you say
Your welcome to the noble pain.

You said — “Since so it is, goodbye,
Sweet life! High hope! But whatsoe’er
May be, or must, no tongue shall dare
To tell — the Lombard fear’d to die.”

You said (O not in vain you said) —
“Haste, brothers! Haste, while yet we may,
The hours ebb fast of this one day
When blood may yet be nobly shed.”

Ah! Not for idle hatred, not
For honour, fame, nor self-applause,
But for the glory of the Cause
You did what will not be forgot.

And though the stranger stand, ’tis true, —
By force and fortune’s right he stands :
By fortune, which is in God’s hands;
And strength, which yet shall spring in you.

This voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera! When thy bridge I cross’d;
“Tis better to have fought and lost
Than never to have fought at all.”

      — Arthur Hugh Clough, 1849