Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, INSTEAD OF TEARS (IN MEMORIAM OF H.M.S. COSSACK), SELECTION, by MARIE CARMICHAEL STOPES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

INSTEAD OF TEARS (IN MEMORIAM OF H.M.S. COSSACK), SELECTION, by                    
First Line: Our grief for you, poignant and personal
Last Line: You stepped through matter, sweep our spirits on!
Subject(s): Death; Warships; World War Ii; Dead, The; Second World War


Our grief for you, poignant, and personal
But crystallizes woe for all our dead
In this foul war, that sprang upon the mind
Like nightmare fiend upon the sleeping man,
Whose head was pillowed on fair dreaming peace.
In secret, Evil sharped his horrid claws
To rend in tatters ancient free men's laws,
To shackle for all time with no release
Nations who marched in freedom's gallant van.
You were on guard, you and your noble kind
To take the blows on your symbolic head:
We owe to you a song-wreathed pedestal.

Mothers of sons who that same day went down
May pride sustain you when your hearts are sore,
Pride that you mothered men who leaping, said
"The Navy's here" as Cossack grappled to
In line with Drake. Last visions of the brave
Upon a sinking deck must be your pride
Wherein your tears, your grief, not they, have died.
Your sons spring forward from their watery grave
To hold our ships that they may win straight through
The darkest night. Immortalized though dead
In this world you will meet your sons no more:
Think of the thorns upon the Saviour's crown.

I must go to the garden's flower-stocked bed
Where you had planned to dig the scented earth
That muscles should be gently harnessed in
To spirits' service, and from soil to draw
Soul's nutriment with body's nourishment.
When of all outward clamour I am rid
In quiet gardens I will softly bid
The lily fill her cup with scented thought
To fling abroad your purest dreams of law
For all mankind, to close the road to sin.
Winds from the sea repeat, repeat, give birth
To echoes that your gospel may be spread.

We your true friends who loved your radiant glow
Rippling with laughter, reaching out from strength,
Who loved your hands grappling with urgent work
Your eager eyes, piercing the distant light
Your beating heart, firm in its tenderness,
Your upright will to serve our country's need,
The bell of your great voice, its power to plead
With a contagious valiant happiness;
You were a magnet drawing towards the right
Those who, alone, life's harder tasks would shirk;
We had not known to what a bitter length
Our salt tears on salt waves for you would flow.

You stepped through matter, but you have not gone
Your imprint on too many hearts was set
For you to vanish like a morning cloud;
True love in motion cannot thus be checked.
As the Immortals fought upon the plain
With power enhanced by spirits freer guise
Unfurl new wings of love across our skies.
Like Homer's heroes, fight for us again.
What happens when a gallant ship is wrecked
And moving water is her winding-shroud?
In seeming chaos life does not forget.
You stepped through matter, sweep our spirits on!





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