so we prevaricate

in other years we might have made a stand
held on to this place against any foe
made light of any chance of pain or woe
holding our ground with gesture large and grand
against the fiercest horrors of the land
we would have shouted everlasting no
doing the things that would have made it so
all power and glory flowing from each hand
now we are smaller and we will not fight
simply to show that we can hold our own
facing the worst that artifice allows
the choice we face is to abandon right
plunge swiftly onward into the unknown
or stand forsworn of all our naïve vows