To Any Dead Officer

Related poetry:

1. Letters To Dead Imagists EMILY DICKINSON: You gave us the bumble bee who has a soul, The everlasting traveler among the hollyhocks, And how God plays around a back yard garden. STEVIE CRANE: War is kind and we never knew the kindness of war till You came; Nor the black riders and clashes of spear and shield out Of […]...
2. A Prayer to All the Dead among Mine Own People Are these your presences, my clan from Heaven? Are these your hands upon my wounded soul? Mine own, mine own, blood of my blood be with me, Fly by my path till you have made me whole!...
3. Dead Musicians I From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, The substance of my dreams took fire. You built cathedrals in my heart, And lit my pinnacled desire. You were the ardour and the bright Procession of my thoughts toward prayer. You were the wrath of storm, the light On distant citadels aflare. II Great names, I cannot find […]...
4. Sixteen Dead Men O but we talked at large before The sixteen men were shot, But who can talk of give and take, What should be and what not While those dead men are loitering there To stir the boiling pot? You say that we should still the land Till Germany’s overcome; But who is there to argue […]...
5. The Lads in Their Hundreds The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair, There’s men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold, The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there, And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old. There’s chaps from […]...
6. Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All PENSIVE, on her dead gazing, I heard the Mother of All, Desperate, on the torn bodies, on the forms covering the battle-fields gazing; (As the last gun ceased-but the scent of the powder-smoke linger’d;) As she call’d to her earth with mournful voice while she stalk’d: Absorb them well, O my earth, she cried-I charge […]...
7. Troth with the Dead The moon is broken in twain, and half a moon Before me lies on the still, pale floor of the sky; The other half of the broken coin of troth Is buried away in the dark, where the still dead lie. They buried her half in the grave when they laid her away; I had […]...
8. Lines Written In The Belief That The Ancient Roman Festival Of The Dead Was Called Ambarvalia Swings the way still by hollow and hill, And all the world’s a song; “She’s far,” it sings me, “but fair,” it rings me, “Quiet,” it laughs, “and strong!” Oh! spite of the miles and years between us, Spite of your chosen part, I do remember; and I go With laughter in my heart. So […]...
9. On a Dead Child Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee, With promise of strength and manhood full and fair! Though cold and stark and bare, The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee. Thy mother’s treasure wert thou;-alas! no longer To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be Thy father’s pride:-ah, […]...
10. Visiting a Dead Man on a Summer Day In flat America, in Chicago, Graceland cemetery on the German North Side. Forty feet of Corinthian candle Celebrate Pullman embedded Lonely raisin in a cake of concrete. The Potter Palmers float In an island parthenon. Barons of hogfat, railroads and wheat Are postmarked with angels and lambs. But the Getty tomb: white, snow patterned In […]...
11. Dream Song 29: There sat down, once, a thing There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart Só heavy, if he had a hundred years & more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time Henry could not make good. Starts again always in Henry’s ears The little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime. And there is another thing he has in mind Like […]...
12. Gacela of the Dead Child Each afternoon in Granada, Each afternoon, a child dies. Each afternoon the water sits down And chats with its companions. The dead wear mossy wings. The cloudy wind and the clear wind Are two pheasants in flight through the towers, And the day is a wounded boy. Not a flicker of lark was left in […]...
13. Dead Man's Dump The plunging limbers over the shattered track Racketed with their rusty freight, Stuck out like many crowns of thorns, And the rusty stakes like sceptres old To stay the flood of brutish men Upon our brothers dear. The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched; Their shut mouths made […]...
14. The dead babe Last night, as my dear babe lay dead, In agony I knelt and said: “0 God! what have I done, Or in what wise offended Thee, That Thou should’st take away from me My little son? “Upon the thousand useless lives, Upon the guilt that vaunting thrives, Thy wrath were better spent! Why should’st Thou […]...
15. A Dead Rose O Rose! who dares to name thee? No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet; But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat, – Kept seven years in a drawer – thy titles shame thee. The breeze that used to blow thee Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away An odour up the lane to […]...
16. The Song of the Dead Hear now the Song of the Dead in the North by the torn berg-edges They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges. Song of the Dead in the South in the sun by their skeleton horses, Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust of the sere river-courses. Song of […]...
17. The Missing All prevented Me The Missing All prevented Me From missing minor Things. If nothing larger than a World’s Departure from a Hinge Or Sun’s extinction, be observed ‘Twas not so large that I Could lift my Forehead from my work For Curiosity....
18. 1914 IV: The Dead These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth. These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat […]...
19. For a Dead Lady No more with overflowing light Shall fill the eyes that now are faded, Nor shall another’s fringe with night Their woman-hidden world as they did. No more shall quiver down the days The flowing wonder of her ways, Whereof no language may requite The shifting and the many-shaded. The grace, divine, definitive, Clings only as […]...
20. The Haymakers' Song HERE’S to him that grows it, Drink, lads, drink! That lays it in and mows it, Clink, jugs, clink! To him that mows and makes it, That scatters it and shakes it, That turns, and teds, and rakes it, Clink, jugs, clink! Now here ‘s to him that stacks it, Drink, lads, drink! That thrashes […]...
21. Song-Books of the War In fifty years, when peace outshines Remembrance of the battle lines, Adventurous lads will sigh and cast Proud looks upon the plundered past. On summer morn or winter’s night, Their hearts will kindle for the fight, Reading a snatch of soldier-song, Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong; And through the angry marching rhymes Of blind […]...
22. What care the Dead, for Chanticleer What care the Dead, for Chanticleer What care the Dead for Day? ‘Tis late your Sunrise vex their face And Purple Ribaldry of Morning Pour as blank on them As on the Tier of Wall The Mason builded, yesterday, And equally as cool What care the Dead for Summer? The Solstice had no Sun Could […]...
23. Spirits Of The Dead Thy soul shall find itself alone ‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone; Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy. Be silent in that solitude, Which is not loneliness – for then The spirits of the dead, who stood In life before thee, are again In death around thee, […]...
24. To The Dead What I hope (when I hope) is that we’ll See each other again, . . . and again reach the VEIN In which we loved each other. . It existed. It existed. There is a NIGHT within the NIGHT, . . . for, like the detectives (the Ritz Brothers) In The Gorilla, Once we’d been […]...
25. The Dead A good man is seized by the police And spirited away. Months later Someone brags that he shot him once Through the back of the head With a Walther 7.65, and his life Ended just there. Those who loved Him go on searching the cafés In the Barrio Chino or the bars Near the harbor. […]...
26. The Anxious Dead O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear Above their heads the legions pressing on: (These fought their fight in time of bitter fear, And died not knowing how the day had gone.) O flashing muzzles, pause, and let them see The coming dawn that streaks the sky afar; Then let your mighty chorus […]...
27. The wounded angel (from a painting by hugo simberg) Those who bear the wounded angel Are they honoured or destroyed Far beyond their comprehension Are the warfares of the void Angels have a sheen to lift them Well above the bloody battles Human beings give their hurts to Divines don’t need such tittle-tattles Yet this angel has been […]...
28. And Thou Art Dead, As Young and Fair And thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, Too soon return’d to Earth! Though Earth receiv’d them in her bed, And o’er the spot the crowd may tread In carelessness or mirth, There is an eye which could not brook A moment […]...
29. To Thyrza: And Thou Art Dead And thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft and charm so rare Too soon returned to Earth! Though Earth received them in her bed, And o’er the spot the crowd may tread In carelessness or mirth, There is an eye which could not brook A moment […]...
30. As far as your Rifles Cover Do you think, you slaves of a thousand years to poverty, wealth and pride, You can crush the spirit that has been free in a land that’s new and wide? When you’ve scattered the last of the farmer bands, and the war for a while is over, You will hold the land – ay, you’ll […]...
31. Death, To The Dead For Evermore DEATH, to the dead for evermore A King, a God, the last, the best of friends – Whene’er this mortal journey ends Death, like a host, comes smiling to the door; Smiling, he greets us, on that tranquil shore Where neither piping bird nor peeping dawn Disturbs the eternal sleep, But in the stillness far […]...
32. The Everlasting Voices O sweet everlasting Voices, be still; Go to the guards of the heavenly fold And bid them wander obeying your will, Flame under flame, till Time be no more; Have you not heard that our hearts are old, That you call in birds, in wind on the hill, In shaken boughs, in tide on the […]...
33. A Brown Girl Dead With two white roses on her breasts, White candles at head and feet, Dark Madonna of the grave she rests; Lord Death has found her sweet. Her mother pawned her wedding ring To lay her out in white; She’d be so proud she’d dance and sing To see herself tonight....
34. The Dead Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold. These laid the world away; poured out the red Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, That […]...
35. Summons To Love Phoebus, arise! And paint the sable skies With azure, white, and red: Rouse Memnon’s mother from her Tithon’s bed That she may thy career with roses spread: The nightingales thy coming each-where sing: Make an eternal spring! Give life to this dark world which lieth dead; Spread forth thy golden hair In larger locks than […]...
36. Love can do all but raise the Dead Love can do all but raise the Dead I doubt if even that From such a giant were withheld Were flesh equivalent But love is tired and must sleep, And hungry and must graze And so abets the shining Fleet Till it is out of gaze....
37. Dead Love Dead love, by treason slain, lies stark, White as a dead stark-stricken dove: None that pass by him pause to mark Dead love. His heart, that strained and yearned and strove As toward the sundawn strives the lark, Is cold as all the old joy thereof. Dead men, re-risen from dust, may hark When rings […]...
38. Ballade of Dead Actors Where are the passions they essayed, And where the tears they made to flow? Where the wild humours they portrayed For laughing worlds to see and know? Othello’s wrath and Juliet’s woe? Sir Peter’s whims and Timon’s gall? And Millamant and Romeo? Into the night go one and all. Where are the braveries, fresh or […]...
39. Sonnet 71: No longer mourn for me when I am dead No longer mourn for me when I am dead Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell Give warning to the world that I am fled From this vile world with vilest worms to dwell. Nay if you read this line, remember not The hand that writ it, for I love you so That I […]...
40. When You See Millions Of The Mouthless Dead When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you need not so. Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It is not curses heaped on each gashed head? Nor tears. Their blind […]...