December 24, 1914

Before the bitterness, before the hatred,
Before spawning the beast
That must be sated,
In the horror of every war since,
Came the peace on Christmas Eve. 

Few could then believe
The German call heard in the night
Across the blasted waste of No Man's Land.
The British and Germans dared to stand
Atop their trenches, within sight,
And, walking, met halfway in brief reprieve.

Though comical the call,
"We no shoot!" opened the door to all:
To sing old carols, "Stille Nacht, Heilinge Nacht,"
To hear a band play "God Save the King,"
To give as gift every simple thing -
Wine and cigarettes,
Bully beef and biscuits -
To share a human night is all they sought
And a game of soccer with a makeshift ball.

By Christmas the following year
All of the players had killed each other,
Bringing on the helpless, hopeless tears
Of British and German mothers.
French mothers, too, clutched their damp letters
From sons who believed, in December 1914,
That life could be better.

Gone are the trenches; gone are the fences.
Gone are the days a solider could see
The enemy's faces.

Our enemy bears no love
For our yuletide traditional ways.
And still we rain death from above
On the enemy's most holy days.

So let us pray today
For the youth of that children's crusade,
The ones who had glimpsed on that night
That another kind world could be made.