This Is It!
The cannon is muzzled, the planes are nested,
the navies anchored.
The silence breaks to a bird’s song, a child’s laugh.
The assembly line turns from the products of death
to the simple wares of Peace.
The bayonet is put away and the ploughshare lifted again.
This is the Peace we have bought
with blood and sweat and tears.
This is the liberty, this is the freedom,
This is the to-morrow of our yesterdays.
And this is the lesson learned:
That Freedom must be nurtured or it dies;
That a country’s hunger is a world’s shame;
That brotherhood is not bound by the barriers of tongue.
This is our post-war world,
This is the land, the life we’ve won,
The future is now begun.
August Sixteenth, Nineteen Fourty-Five
T.Eaton Co. Limited
This Poem was posted by Maureen O’Neill on Facebook, found in her Mother’s scrapbook.
T Eaton & Co Ltd. full page ad in the Toronto Star, 1945