Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO THE MEN OF 'WARRIORS' WARD', by VICTOR GUSTAVE PLARR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO THE MEN OF 'WARRIORS' WARD', by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Nightly, amid my books, I stand and view
Last Line: Will mend them when 'tis time.
Subject(s): Death; Disasters; Graves; Sailing & Sailors; Shipwrecks; Stillbirth; Dead, The; Tombs; Tombstones; Death - Childbirth


Buried in a Common Grave in the Cemetery of Greenwich Hospital

Nightly, amid my books, I stand and view
A graveyard with sparse headstones clustering white
Among some lonely shapes of cypress yew,
Which spire into the night.

Shadows of tomb and tree above a sweep
Of vacant grass lie soft, as though to mark
That which is holiest in yon place of sleep,
So full of misty dark.

Hard by, the River curves in that great bend
Where the majestic convoy once did float,
From Greenwich Stairs to Woolwich, to attend
The great dead Captain's boat!

To-day they wreathe his column: no breeze stirs
One votive leaf on all this graveless sward,
Where sleep the worn three thousand Pensioners,
The men of 'Warriors' Ward.'

Torn from dear homes, dear arms, pressed and entrapped,
They came an angry throng to their sea-fate,
But soon the veriest veteran's hate was capped
By their tremendous hate!

Loudly through those old battles rushed and broke
The scattering shells: 'mong crash of mast and spar,
Stript to the waist, blackened by battle smoke,
Loomed each terrific tar!

Down their best Admiral dropt: then up they ran
Another gun. Though all who held command
Died to the last robustious midshipman,
They boarded, pike in hand.

Nothing could daunt them: nothing could oppress
Those hawk-faced, pig-tailed men, so strangely breeched,
Invincible in proud foolhardiness,
By death alone o'er-reached!

The blood from their dead faces long ago
Was wiped away; long since the bandages
Were taken from those limbs that are brought low,
Death their great Surgeon is!

And now the white bones wait, maimed, but august,
Nameless, dispersed, o'er-crowded, yet sublime,
Trusting that He in whom they put their trust
Will mend them when 'tis time.





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