You picked up the stick.

  They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old,

  and names will never hurt me.

Age shall not weary them

  nor the years condemn, condemn

  as do we that are left to grow old.

  Your grandson squints in a lemon-juice dawn

  at a monument holding your wound like a flag.

      He will pick it up because they said.

        He will use it: use it on my back

        and wonder that it does not break.

        And he will take it home again;

        they say that it is his to take.

      I saw your spine all marked with dust
  

        when I picked up the stick.

Oh Johnny I knew you all too well,

  passing through hell’s needling eye

  out into hills and the green-ferned ground

  and never once to speak of it -

what was not remembered

  we will not forget; forget as do we

  that are left to grow weary.

They say

  you exchanged blood for blood and mud

  for the glum mud of the Waikato, and stilled

  your tongue beside the waters.

  Now heedless youths drink beer in Turkish sun,

  watch it gild their skin, and believe

  that false old alchemy.

Carry the stick    carry the stick    carry the
  stick

  carry the stick.    Carry the stick    oh
  carry it —

I carried the stick.

At the going down of the sun and in the evening

  (he-will-pick-it-up-because-they-said)

  sticks and stones have built my bones,

  (and-he-will-pick-it-up-because-they-said)

  built of bones my house on sand.

  (and he-will-pick-it-up-because-they-said)

  

  At the set of memory our sight will fade

  to the nation-blue of hell’s good eye

  and land where the dead and the living lie

      naming them hurts me, soldier boy —

        shall I not remember what  they  said?