Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FIELD OF HONOR, by SARA HENDERSON HAY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FIELD OF HONOR, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In truth, we might have known it from the start
Last Line: Albeit by the ashes in my breast!
Subject(s): Truth


In truth, we might have known it from the start,
This path would have its turnings; there would be
No real alternative for you and me,
Fashioned of honest earth, except to part.
Whether the blow were mine to deal, or whether
Yours the swift blade by which this bond were sundered,
The hearts must bleed, because the feet have blundered
Into a way we may not walk together.

Rebuke me not, beloved, in that I
Perforce do quickly that which needs must be --
I am as one who fights because she fears
A darker wound, a deadlier agony
Than fronts her now. And if I say goodbye,
Believe me that I say it through my tears!

I do beseech that you believe me true,
And cry your solace in a desperate need --
Belovedest, I had been false indeed,
If I did not this bitter thing I do!
Better a thousand times the anguish due,
The heart insolvent, but the conscience freed,
Than turn thus traitor to a certain creed,
Be faithless to myself, as well as you!

For it were surely treachery most base
To risk the sullying of so proud a shield;
To chance a single stain upon the face
Of what we bear in honor from the field,
Worthy to keep untarnished through the years,
Though polished daily with what meed of tears!

Strange paradox, my friend, that you and I,
Who deemed our trusted strength so pure and sweet,
Should find ourselves stricken to earth thereby,
Our swords turned sharply to our own defeat!
"Wisdom" writ large across the frozen breast
Is doubtful comfort when the heart is breaking --
What final irony is manifest
That we are scourged with thongs of our own making!

So I shall nevermore behold your face,
Nor look for heaven at your finger-tips,
And all my ordered goings shall attest
How I have set mine honor in its place --
Albeit by the wormwood on my lips,
Albeit by the ashes in my breast!





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