Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THAT WOODEN CROSS by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON

Poet Analysis

First Line: THAT WOODEN CROSS BESIDE THE ROAD
Last Line: THAT WOODEN CROSS!
Subject(s): WORLD WAR I; FIRST WORLD WAR;
THAT wooden cross beside the road
Marks -- as the now-blurred legend showed --
That there a 'soldat anglais' dead
Has found betimes his foreign bed --
His last impregnable abode.

'Tis no uncommon episode,
You say, of war's barbaric code,
For which so many men have bled --
That wooden cross!

Nay, but this blood was well bestowed;
'Twas shed for nations 'neath the load
Of mailed oppression fury-fed,
And ruthless rapine, sore bestead.
Surely it needs no funeral ode --
That wooden cross!



Home: PoetryExplorer.net