Living in an age of prosperity,
we enjoy the security and abundance that national strength has brought.
Yet as I set down my pen, concern remains.
For we know
that history is never still. Every brief peace is a gift of its time,
and an unfinished responsibility entrusted to us through the lives and suffering of those before us.
Between this island and the mainland, between civilization’s embers and its future flame,
these words are written not to decide who is right or wrong,
but in the hope that someone will remember:
before the storm returns,
some people, fortunate enough to have enough to eat, are still thinking and still sounding the bell.
May the land remain unharmed; may the spring breeze endure.
May the children of our people
never again wake to the terror of war.