Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl,
Alex Morell,
Christl Probst, Willi Graf
—so many years lost
(none more than twenty-five,
Sophie twenty-one.
Kurt Huber was much older
but name him, praise him as well),
promised, unfulfilled
years, years for fun,
years of trouble, good
years, years of dream
and doing, thought and love,
all sheared by a fall
of slanting steel,
gone in a burst of blood.
Yet, against lost years
gone with the white rose
horribly lopped,
the manner of the loss
and all that’s in them lost
(incalculable theirs,
ours much) miraculous gain,
ours, theirs, does remain
—the heaven which Blake’s love
builds in Hell’s despair,
hope in despairing hell
breathed by these good and brave,
Kurt Huber and his children:
Willi Graf, Christl Probst,
Alex Morell, Hans Scholl,
Sophie Scholl.