Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A VOLUNTEER'S GRAVE, by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY Poet's Biography First Line: Not long ago it was a bird Last Line: Than this dead boy! Subject(s): Death; Eyes; Graves; Sleep; Dead, The; Tombs; Tombstones | ||||||||
Not long ago it was a bird In vacant, lilac skies Could stir the sleep that hardly closed His laughing eyes. But here, where murdering thunders rock The lintels of the dawn, Although they shake his shallow bed Yet he sleeps on. Another spring with rain and leaf And buds serenely red, And this wise field will have forgot Its youthful dead. And, wise of heart, who loved him best Will be forgetting, too, Even before their own beds gleam With heedless dew. Yet what have all the centuries Of purpose, pain, and joy Bequeathed us lovelier to recall Than this dead boy! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE SURVIVOR AMONG GRAVES by RANDALL JARRELL SUBJECTED EARTH by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE GRAVE OF MRS. HEMANS by CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER THOSE GRAVES IN ROME by LARRY LEVIS NOT TO BE DWELLED ON by HEATHER MCHUGH ONE LAST DRAW OF THE PIPE by PAUL MULDOON ETRUSCAN TOMB by JOHN FREDERICK NIMS ENDING WITH A LINE FROM LEAR by MARVIN BELL OVERTONES by WILLIAM ALEXANDER PERCY |
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