To The Unknown Warrior

You whom the kings saluted; who refused not
   The one great gesture of ignoble days,
Fame without name and glory without gossip,
   Whom no biographer befouls with praise.

Who said of you 'Defeated'? In the darkness
   The dug-out where the limelight never comes,
Nor the big drum of Barnum's Show can shatter
   That vibrant stillness after all the drums.

Though the time come when every Yankee circus
   Can use our soldiers for its sandwich-men,
When those that pay the piper call the tune,
   You will not dance. You will not move again.

You will not march for Fatty Arbuckle,
   Though he have yet a favourable press,
Tender as San Francisco to St. Francis,
   Or all the Angels of Los Angeles.

They shall not storm the last unfallen fortress,
   The lonely castle where uncowed and free
Dwells the unknown and undefeated warrior
   That did alone defeat Publicity.

- G.K. Chesterton