THE soldier does not think of death. He is bemused with discipline — no longer an ambler through all his own, his little breadth of unrestriction, for he has met a stronger even than the fortress walls of memories (and they were mortared with an old delight, bricked high with anguish. One man's life was there, within their shelter). This that was only his is broken to endless particles of care for brass and boots and gun. And down an uncandled night of labyrinthine trivialities the soldier follows, turned automaton. The soldier does not think of death. And yet ... and yet ... He crouches, leopard-low, a stain of shadow on the ruffling plain; about the dark adder of his rifle blow the tall grass-clusters, dancers who dip and sway to the petulant sceptre of a princeling breeze. Then one dog barks — oh! it pierces the easy day, pierces the languor of his deserted brain; it came from the valley, but it came from the house next door— that cur's insatiable, shrill unease at every footstep by the tattered hedge; and his home, its atticked, its forgotten store comes tumbling down the stairway of his mind. Or he will find (eyes loitering about a momentary page) one arrow phrase, "the thud of the apples on October ground": there is all the procession of the autumn woods through crimson sunsets suddenly deep with sadness for the irrevocable year; and the warm susurrus of old-golden trees — soon, soon, they will shrink to gaunter traceries against an angrier sky, a dusk of fear. And these remind the soldier that he loves and that he hates. Death stretches then a finger to his throat, touches and patiently withdraws; death waits. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONG: SO OFTEN, SO LONG I HAVE THOUGHT by HAYDEN CARRUTH ECSTASY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON WOMAN by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE JOY OF THE HILLS by EDWIN MARKHAM SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: EUGENIA TODD by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |