MY life is done, yet all remains, The breath has gone, the image not, The furious shapes once forged in heat Live on though now no longer hot. Steadily the shining swords In order rise, in order fall, In order on the beaten field The faithful trumpets call. The women weeping for the dead Are not sad now but dutiful, The dead men stiffening in their place Proclaim the ancient rule. Great Wallace's body hewn in four, So altered, stays as it must be. 0 Douglas do not leave me now, For past your head I see My dagger sheathed in Comyn's heart And nothing there to praise or blame, Nothing but order which must be Itself and still the same. But that Christ hung upon the Cross, Comyn would rot until time's end And bury my sin in boundless dust, For there is no amend. In order; yet in order run All things by unreturning ways, If Christ live not, nothing is there For sorrow or for praise.' So the king spoke to Douglas once A little while before his death, Having outfaced three English kings And kept a people's faith. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE RETIRED CAT by WILLIAM COWPER NORMAN CRADLE-SONG by VINCENT JAMES O'SULLIVAN AMORETTI: 15 by EDMUND SPENSER MUIOPOTMOS, OR THE FATE OF THE BUTTERFLIE by EDMUND SPENSER THE PRINCESS: SONG by ALFRED TENNYSON ROMANCE by WALTER JAMES REDFERN TURNER THE INNER VISION by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH |