Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE BURIAL IN ENGLAND, by JAMES ELROY FLECKER Poet's Biography First Line: These then we honour: these in fragrant earth Last Line: Shall gather at the gate of paradise. Subject(s): Funerals; Patriotism; Burials | ||||||||
These then we honour: these in fragrant earth Of their own country in great peace forget Death's lion-roar and gust of nostril-flame Breathing souls across to the Evening Shore. Soon over these the flowers of our hill-sides Shall wake and wave and nod beneath the bee And whisper love to Zephyr year on year, Till the red war gleam like a dim red rose Lost in the garden of the Sons of Time. But ah what thousands no such friendly doom Awaits, -- whom silent comrades in full night Gazing right and left shall bury swiftly By the cold flicker of an alien moon. Ye veiled women, ye with folded hands, Mourning those you half hoped for Death too dear, I claim no heed of you. Broader than earth Love stands eclipsing nations with his wings, While Pain, his shadow, delves as black and deep As he e'er flamed or flew. Citizens draw Back from their dead awhile. Salute the flag! If this flag though royally always borne, Deceived not dastard, ever served base gold; If the dark children of the old Forest Once feared it, or ill Sultans mocked it furled, Yet now as on a thousand death-reaped days It takes once more the unquestionable road. O bright with blood of heroes, not a star Of all the north shines purer on the sea! Our foes -- the hardest men a state can forge, An army wrenched and hammered like a blade Toledo-wrought neither to break nor bend, Dipped in that ice the pedantry of power, And toughened with wry gospels of dismay; Such are these who brake down the door of France, Wolves worrying at the old World's honour, Hunting Peace not to prison but her tomb. but ever as some brown song-bird whose torn nest Gapes robbery, darts on the hawk like fire, So Peace hath answered, angry and in arms. And from each grey hamlet and bright town of France From where the apple or the olive grows Or thin tall strings of poplars on the plains, From the rough castle of the central hills, From the three coasts -- of mist and storm and sun, And meadows of the four deep-rolling streams, From every house whose windows hear God's bell Crowding the twilight with the wings of prayer And flash their answer in a golden haze, Stream the young soldiers who are never tired. For all the foul mists vanished when that land Called clear, as in the sunny Alpine morn The jodeler awakes the frosty slopes To thunderous replies, -- soon fading far Among the vales like songs of dead children. But the French guns' answer, ne'er to echoes weak Diminshed, bursts from the deep trenches vet; And its least light vibration blew to dust The weary factions, -- priest's or guild's or king's, And side by side troop up the old partisans, The same laughing, invincible, tough men Who gave Napoleon Europe like a loaf, For slice and portion, -- not so long ago! Either to Alsace or loved lost Lorraine They pass, or inexpugnable Verdun Ceintured with steel, or stung with faith's old cry Assume God's vengeance for his temple stones. But you maybe best wish them for the north Beside you 'neath low skies in loamed fields, Or where the great line hard on the duned shore Ends and night leaps to England's sea-borne flame. Never one drop of Lethe's stagnant cup Dare dim the fountains of the Marne and Aisne Since still the flowers and meadow-grass unmown Lie broken with the imprint of those who fell, Briton and Gaul -- but fell immortal friends And fell victorious and like tall trees fell. But young men, you who loiter in the town, Need you be roused with overshouted words, Country, Empire, Honour, Liege, Louvain? Pay your own Youth the duty of her dreams. For what sleep shall keep her from the thrill Of War's star-smiting music, with its swell Of shore and forest and horns high in the wind, (Yet pierced with that too sharp piping which if man Hear and not fear he shall face God unscathed)? What, are you poets whose vain souls contrive Sorties and sieges spun of the trickling moon And such a rousing ghost-catastrophe You need no concrete marvels to be saved? Or live you here too lustily for change? Sail you such pirate seas on such high quests, Hunt you thick gold or striped and spotted beasts, Or tread the lone ways of the swan-like mountains? Excused. But if, as I think, breeched in blue, Stalled at a counter, cramped upon a desk, You drive a woman's pencraft -- or a slave's, What chain shall hold you when the trumpets play, Calling from the blue hill behind your town, Calling over the seas, calling for you! "But" -- do you murmur? -- "we'd not be as those. Death is a dour recruiting-sergeant: see, These women weep, we celebrate the dead." Boys, drink the cup of warning dry. Face square That old grim hazard, "Glory-or-the-Grave." Not we shall trick your pleasant years away, Yet is not Death the great adventure still, And is it all loss to set ship clean anew When heart is young and life an eagle poised? Choose, you're no cowards. After all, think some, Since we are men and shrine immortal souls Surely for us as for these nobly dead The Kings of England lifting up their swords Shall gather at the gate of Paradise. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FUNERAL SERMON by ANDREW HUDGINS RETURN FROM DELHI by JOSEPHINE JACOBSEN THE SCATTERING OF EVAN JONES'S ASHES by GALWAY KINNELL BROWNING'S FUNERAL by H. T. MACKENZIE BELL FALLING ASLEEP OVER THE AENEID by ROBERT LOWELL MY FATHER'S BODY by WILLIAM MATTHEWS SANTORIN (A LEGEND OF THE AEGEAN) by JAMES ELROY FLECKER |
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