Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, OUR DEAD, OVERSEAS, by EDWARD ARCHIBALD MARKHAM


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

OUR DEAD, OVERSEAS, by                    
First Line: In italy, in belgium, in france
Last Line: Something that swings the spirit to a star.
Alternate Author Name(s): Markham, E. A.
Subject(s): Cemeteries; Death; World War I - United States; Graveyards; Dead, The


IN ITALY, in Belgium, in France,
They sleep ensphered in glorious circumstance.

With high heroic heart
They did their valiant part.
They gave the flower-like glory of their youth
To lie in heaps abhorrent and uncouth.
For us they gave their life to its last breath —
For us they plunged on into the gulf of death.
They turned from these bright skies
To lie with dust and silence on their eyes.

Yet they have wages that we know not of —
Wages of honor and immortal love.
For they went down only to live again
In the eternal memory of men —
To be warm pulse-beats in the greatening soul
That drives the blind world onward to her goal.
They are not dead: life's flag is never furled:
They passed from world to world.
Their bodies sleep; but in some nobler land
Their spirits march under a new command;
New joys await them there
In hero heavens wrapt in immortal air.

Rejoice for them, rejoice:
They made the nobler choice.
How shall we honor their deed —
How speak our praise of this immortal breed?
Only by living nobly, as they died —
Toiling for truth denied,
Loyal to something bigger than we are —
Something that swings the spirit to a star.





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