Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, by CHARLES ABRAHAM WAGNER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: One man's shoulder, another man's thigh
Last Line: To call each colored weed a flower.
Subject(s): Death; Soldiers; Unknown Soldier; War; Dead, The


One man's shoulder, another man's thigh—
The unknown soldier, here I lie.
Rest and quiet is all I seek,
Letting the chambermaid statesmen speak,
Letting the peace that they begot
Rot in the quick earth as I rot,
Letting the Peace that they declared
Fall in the pit my bones have shared,
Letting the kings and queens go by
One man's shoulder, another man's thigh.

The unknown soldier, here I lie.
One man's forehead, another man's eye,
One man's collar-bone, one man's leg
By which to lift the world a peg.
They made of me a handy penny
Because my bones are made of many;
But though my limbs are all assorted,
The brain of me is undistorted,
I all alive and full of reason
And tracking still the trail of treason. ...

They are not dead. Their brains are steady—
The millions lying still lie heady.
Their eyes and fingers gleam and point
And there are flames from every joint.
Not one is lost, they all are known,
They tally, every thread and bone.
Their sleep is false, disturbed, unsound,
You hear it in the very ground—
It mutters: "All is not yet over,
There's more of me than tracks of clover."

One leg's a runner's, fleet and thin;
He'll bring the early violets in
And bind them in his sweetheart's hair
When love has dropped the dress of care.
One leg's a farmer's, badly torn;
He'll space the even rows with corn
And call the cows in from the field
When rust has hammered on the shield.
He'll have a daughter, tall and fair,
With purple violets in her hair.

One arm's a thief's arm, long and white;
He'll rest his head on it all night
And turn the plow from off the stone
When men take each their little throne.
One arm's a poet's, straight and strong,
For whom I sing this bit of song;
He has a violet from each eye
Continuing his sight of sky,
And from each fingertip there goes
A want that's ended in a rose.

Unknown, I haunt each palace door,
I stand upon each judgment floor.
Unknown, from out my mingled pit
I leer upon the law, new-writ.
Aye, and my tomb is made of fire
Where Heaven and Hell both draw desire;
A caldron from some God afar
To lean down and prepare a star;
A seed, deep fallen in the earth,
To reassure itself of birth!

One man's shoulder, another man's arm,
By which to steer the world from harm.
Unknown, the wind will tell my heart
And make wild roses spring and start.
Unknown, the tongues of men will turn
The fiery sentences I burn—
No mortal names to hush the cry,
But one man's shoulder, another man's thigh!
A loss where men would pity give,
A gain where thought itself may live.

They do not know my mingled thought,
They who have wreaths and speeches brought,
And doffed their hats and bowed before
The "symbol of the end of war."
My thought is further than they know
Who mingled me unknowing so:
My limbs are, shattered and unknown,
Stronger than I would be alone.
I am not one, but I am all,
I answer every soldier's call. ...

My thought runs fire through the ground—
Each battlefield, from mound to mound,
Since first man ever learned the thrust
That made him kin to all the dust,
My thought is of another war
With love and life to battle for.
I shall be gathering by rank
And halt before Time's outer flank.
About!—and muster all the dead
Who ever falsely fell and bled.

Unknown, my song shall weave its horn
Into the ranks of the unborn.
Unknown, my strength and secret lies
(One man's shoulder, another man's eyes).
And until Love walks in the sun
I shall not lay aside this gun;
Until the busy streets proclaim
That life and beauty are the same;
Until man's voices find the power
To call each colored weed a flower.





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