Melville and Coghill - The Place Of The Little Hand
DEAD, with their eyes to the foe,
Dead, with the foe at their feet;
Under the sky laid low
Truly their slumber is sweet,
Though the wind from the Camp of the
Slain Men blow,
And the rain on the wilderness beat.
Dead, for they chose to die
When that wild race was run;
Dead, for they would not fly,
Deeming their work undone,
Nor cared to look on the face of the sky,
Nor loved the light of the sun.
Honor we give them and tears,
And the flag they died to save,
Rent from the raid of the spears,
Wet from the war and the wave,
Shall waft men’s thoughts through the dust of the years,
Back to their lonely grave!
poem by Andrew Lang
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Related quotes
I Stood With the Dead
I Stood with the Dead, so forsaken and still:
When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead.
And my slow heart said, 'You must kill, you must kill:
'Soldier, soldier, morning is red'.
On the shapes of the slain in their crumpled disgrace
I stared for a while through the thin cold rain...
'O lad that I loved, there is rain on your face,
'And your eyes are blurred and sick like the plain.'
I stood with the Dead ... They were dead; they were dead;
My heart and my head beat a march of dismay:
And gusts of the wind came dulled by the guns.
'Fall in!' I shouted; 'Fall in for your pay!'
poem by Siegfried Sassoon
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All Dead, All Dead
Memories, my memories
How long can you stay
To haunt my days
She came without a farthing
A babe without a name
So much ado about nothing
Is what shed try to say
So much ado my lover
So many games we played
Through every fleeted summer
Through every precious day
All dead all dead
All the dreams we had
And I wonder why I still live on
All dead all dead
And alone Im spared
My sweeter half instead
All dead
And gone
All dead...
All dead all dead
At the rainbows end
And still I hear her own sweet song
All dead all dead
Take me back again
You know my little friends
All dead
And gone
All dead and gone
Her ways are always with me
I wander all the while
But please you must forgive me
I am old but still a child
All dead all dead
But I should not grieve
In time it comes to everyone
All dead all dead
But in hope I breathe
Of course I dont believe
Youre dead
And gone
All dead
And gone
song performed by by Queen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dead End Street
Theres a crack up in the ceiling,
And the kitchen sink is leaking.
Out of work and got no money,
A sunday joint of bread and honey.
What are we living for?
Two-roomed apartment on the second floor.
No money coming in,
The rent collectors knocking, trying to get in.
We are strictly second class,
We dont understand,
(dead end!)
Why we should be on dead end street.
(dead end!)
People are living on dead end street.
(dead end!)
Gonna die on dead end street.
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
On a cold and frosty morning,
Wipe my eyes and stop me yawning.
And my feet are nearly frozen,
Boil the tea and put some toast on.
What are we living for?
Two-roomed apartment on the second floor.
No chance to emigrate,
Im deep in debt and now its much too late.
We both want to work so hard,
We cant get the chance,
(dead end!)
People live on dead end street.
(dead end!)
People are dying on dead end street.
(dead end!)
Gonna die on dead end street.
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
(dead end!)
People live on dead end street.
(dead end!)
People are dying on dead end street.
(dead end!)
Gonna die on dead end street.
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
Head to my feet (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
Hows it feel? (yeah)
Hows it feel? (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
Dead end street (yeah)
song performed by by Kinks
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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When I Think Of Myself As Dead
WHEN I THINK OF MYSELF AS DEAD
When I think of myself as dead
I think of what it will mean for my loved ones
I pray they will not lose heart and hope because of it-
When my father died my brother lost hope-
When I think of myself dead
I wonder about God and God�s purpose
Is there really an afterlife?
What could it mean?
Will I meet again those who have gone before me?
When I think of myself dead
I think about a body in the ground
Worms eating it, cold paining it-
When I think of myself as dead
I think about never feeling anything again-
When I think about myself as dead
I think about the work I have left behind
And whether it will mean anything to anyone
And for how long-
When I think of myself as dead
I think of all the memories that will go with me
I think about nothing and more nothing and the end of the universe-
When I think of myself as dead
I think of life going on down below
Life with all its beauty and pain
And I pray and I pray again
My loved ones will be able to manage and make their own lives still happy
When I think of myself as dead
I pray to G-d
That somehow in some way
It will not be the end for me forever.
When I think of myself as dead
I think of myself as living again somehow
In a way I cannot now know-
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Children's Playground In The City
THIS is a place where men laid their dead,
Each with his life-tale of good or ill;
Here prayers were murmured and hot tears shed,
And passionate anguish moaned its fill.
Silent now is each voice that cried,
And the tears that were wept have all been dried
In the dust; and dust are the hearts that bled
With hopeless longing for hearts grown still.
Dead and forgotten! for Death, requiter
Of love, taught Memory how to forget!
The love that remembered them died. Grow brighter,
Oh, dim grave-garden, with dead hearts set!
Room for the small flying feet to pass,
The feet of the children over the grass!
The dead, if they knew it, would feel them lighter
Than the weight of a stone that no tears make wet.
We must die too, and the grief that will live
Must die as surely--death comes to all;
But you who come after--let Nature give
To our graves her tears, to our dust her pall:
Let her hide us away in her cold broad breast,
Let us be forgotten, and be at rest,
And over our heads let the great world strive,
And the children's voices carol and call.
If your heart on the flower of remembrance is set,
There is one way to pluck it--and only one:
Dare you ask your country not to forget
A name that needs to be graved on stone?
By grief, strife, sacrifice, scorn of fame,
You may grave on the people's hearts your name,
Or your name may die, and your soul live yet
In the cause you died for--the work you have done.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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We Cannot Save The Dead
WE CANNOT SAVE THE DEAD
We cannot save the dead,
Though we perfect our forms of remembrance-
The dead are the dead forever dead-
And we will too one day be among them
Dead forever dead-
Despite the way those left behind strive to remember.
Dead forever dead-
Unless God decide
In some way we cannot understand
That the individual human being
Is as infinitely precious
As those who love them here
know them to be.
-
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Farewell
Mother, with unbowed head
Hear thou across the sea
The farewell of the dead,
The dead who died for thee.
Greet them again with tender words and grave,
For saving thee, themselves they could not save.
To keep the house unharmed
Their fathers built so fair,
Deeming endurance armed
Better than brute despair,
They found the secret of the word that saith,
'Service is sweet, for all true life is death.'
So greet thou well thy dead
Across the homeless sea,
And be thou comforted
Because they died for thee.
Far off they served, but now their deed is done
For evermore their life and thine are one.
poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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Psalm 88
I am engulfed in troubled waters
I am drowning in my tears
I cry out to you night and day
Deliver me Lord from all my fears
I am surrounded by deep darkness
And troubles fill my soul
I am adrift among the dead
And the blackness has swallowed me whole
My friends are gone, I'm all alone
I am laid down in the lowest pit
I have no strength I cannot stand
Upon shards of pottery I now sit
I cannot praise you from the grave
Do you work wonders for the dead?
It was for me you came to save
It was for me you died and bled
poem by Frank McEleny
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September 1913
What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
Yet they were of a different kind,
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman's rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
Yet could we turn the years again,
And call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain,
You'd cry, 'Some woman's yellow hair
Has maddened every mother's son':
They weighed so lightly what they gave.
But let them be, they're dead and gone,
They're with O'Leary in the grave.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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September
WHAT need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone?
For men were born to pray and save:
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
Yet they were of a different kind,
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman's rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.
Yet could we turn the years again,
And call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain,
You'd cry, 'Some woman's yellow hair
Has maddened every mother's son':
They weighed so lightly what they gave.
But let them be, they're dead and gone,
They're with O'Leary in the grave.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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Dead In The Wombs
those same children
who died in the waters
that swallowed Atlantis....
those same children,
starving 'neath Africa's sun....
dead from the bombings
in Iraq, Afghanistan, and soon Iran....
their bodies thrown into dumpsters
here in the United States....
dead on the borders,
dead in the oil filled waters,
dead on the cocaine streets,
dead in the prisons...
dead in the colleges,
dead in the unemployment lines....
dead on the picket lines,
dead, handcuffed, and beaten....
dying, and dead, world crazy spinning...
as the 'light of the world'
sputters, and goes out....
dead in the wombs of the
homeless, hopeless, and forgotten...
dead by our hands!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Honor the Vets
I looked at the grave stones of the veteran dead
Tears filled my eyes as I bowed my head.
All of them had served their country proud
Now they lay in this ground.
They were sons and daughters, mothers and fathers
Sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts
And the list goes on and on.
But how many of them are honored
with a flower or two.
It’s really not hard to do.
They gave their lives so that we can be free
Don’t they deserve some dignity?
This country is standing on the lives of the dead
All of these have died, and many have bled.
Freedom isn’t really free
Other wise these grave stones you would not see.
Isn’t there someone in your family
Who died fighting for liberty?
Let us honor the dead
And thank the living for all that they have given.
poem by Louis Rams
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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 eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,
"Yet many a better one has died before."
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.
poem by Charles Hamilton Sorley
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The Swallow Leaves Her Nest
THE swallow leaves her nest,
The soul my weary breast;
But therefore let the rain
On my grave
Fall pure; for why complain?
Since both will come again
O'er the wave.
The wind dead leaves and snow
Doth hurry to and fro;
And, once, a day shall break
O'er the wave,
When a storm of ghosts shall shake
The dead, until they wake
In the grave.
poem by Thomas Lovell Beddoes
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Dead Man, Dead Man
Uttering idle words from a reprobate mind,
Clinging to strange promises, dying on the vine,
Never bein able to separate the good from the bad,
Ooh, I cant stand it, I cant stand it,
Its makin me feel so sad.
Dead man, dead man,
When will you arise?
Cobwebs in your mind,
Dust upon your eyes.
Satan got you by the heel, theres a birds nest in your hair.
Do you have any faith at all? do you have any love to share?
The way that you hold your head, cursin God with every move,
Ooh, I cant stand it, I cant stand it,
What are you tryin to prove?
Dead man, dead man,
When will you arise?
Cobwebs in your mind,
Dust upon your eyes.
The glamour and the bright lights and the politics of sin,
The ghetto that you build for me is the one you end up in,
The race of the engine that overrules your heart,
Ooh, I cant stand it, I cant stand it,
Pretending that youre so smart.
Dead man, dead man,
When will you arise?
Cobwebs in your mind,
Dust upon your eyes.
What are you tryin to overpower me with, the doctrine or the gun?
My back is already to the wall, where can I run?
The tuxedo that youre wearin, the flower in your lapel,
Ooh, I cant stand it, I cant stand it,
You wanna take me down to hell.
Dead man, dead man,
When will you arise?
Cobwebs in your mind,
Dust upon your eyes.
song performed by by Bob Dylan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Song from the Waters
Act I, scene iv, lines 259-72
The swallow leaves her nest,
The soul my weary breast;
But therefore let the rain
On my grave
Fall pure; for why complain
Since both will come again
O'er the wave.
The wind dead leaves and snow
Doth hurry to and fro;
And, once, a day shall break
O'er the wave,
When a storm of ghosts shall shake
The dead, until they wake
In the grave.
poem by Thomas Lovell Beddoes
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The Witch Of Mull
'Witch of Mull, the strangers here
Come to wreak their vengeance drear:
Call the wind and call the wrack;
Drown them, drive them, beat them back!'
Wind and wave are wild in Morvern.
'Gormla, speed! Their magic powers
Calm the deep and baffle ours:
Aid us, thou who know'st full well
Strongest brew and blackest spell!'
Wind and wave are wild in Morvern.
Magpies twelve upon the mast
Call aloud to wave and blast'
'Bonnily on Morvern shore
Shall we feast when all is o'er!'
Wind and wave are wild in Morvern.
Harried seaward, fast they flee
Wind and wrack and raging sea:
Hard and grey the rocks before, -
Hard their bed on Morvern shore!
Wind and wave are wild in Morvern.
Bonny dead men on the sand, -
Dead and drowned on Morvern strand, -
Broken mast and battered hull, -
Glad the witches are in Mull!
Wind and wave are wild in Morvern.
poem by Cicely Fox Smith
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Dead Or Alive
There in the shadows, looks like a hand
Without its owner, to give it a command
Its got a purpose but I dont know what it is
Im in trouble
There in the streets, looks like a man
But something wrong that I dont understand
His eyes are open but he dont see a thing
His skin is peeling off, his bones are sticking out
Im getting scared
Oh my God (is it dead? )
Is it living? (is it dead? )
Is it dead or alive?
(is it dead? ), is it dead? (is it dead? )
Is it dead? (is it dead? )
Is it dead or alive?
Hiding in the cupboards, like little mice
Hiding in the frigerator, that isnt nice
Its not an animal, it dont have legs
No one else can see it
It moves so fast, corner of my eye
Look again its gone, its hiding
Wont somebody help me, doesnt anybody care?
It waits so patiently, for me to lose my guard
Im getting scared
Is it dead, is it
(is it dead)
Is it dead
(is it dead)
Is it dead or alive
(is it dead)
Is it dead
(is it dead)
Is it dead, is it
I remember there was a time
When dead and buried meant just that
Underneath the cold dark ground
Things stay put!
Oh them bones they make them bodies walk
Them bones, them bones
If they could only talk!
Is it dead (fade)
song performed by by Oingo Boingo
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Mourners
I look into the aching womb of night;
I look across the mist that masks the dead;
The moon is tired and gives but little light,
The stars have gone to bed.
The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain;
A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree;
I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain,
The dead I do not see.
The slain I would not see . . . and so I lift
My eyes from out the shambles where they lie;
When lo! a million woman-faces drift
Like pale leaves through the sky.
The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears;
But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare
Into the shadow of the coming years
Of fathomless despair.
And some are young, and some are very old;
And some are rich, some poor beyond belief;
Yet all are strangely like, set in the mould
Of everlasting grief.
They fill the vast of Heaven, face on face;
And then I see one weeping with the rest,
Whose eyes beseech me for a moment's space. . . .
Oh eyes I love the best!
Nay, I but dream. The sky is all forlorn,
And there's the plain of battle writhing red:
God pity them, the women-folk who mourn!
How happy are the dead!
poem by Robert William Service
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Red Is The Blood We Bleed
It is a very natural thing for one to love their Land of birth
And think that their Homeland Country is the finest Land on Earth
In his Lay of the last Minstrel Walter Scott said it all
Often with tears the migrant the old Homeland recall.
But when we feel that our race is superior it is there the wrong come in
Though we never hear of a war on racism a war we well might win
As racism can lead to war it is a moral sin
For those who feel that they have the right to judge you by the colour of your skin.
The National flags in the wind on the flag posts wave on War Memorial day
As we remember those who fought and died in past wars fought far away
Of war heroes and war victories we may feel proud to brag
But is it the war dead we respect or the colour of our National flag?
The war dead we commemorate died for justice, peace and liberty
But many in the World of today know of oppression and live in abject poverty
If the war dead could only speak many of them well might say
We would not fight a war again were we living today?
It is a very natural thing for to love one's own Homeland
And the nostalgic tears of ageing migrants are not hard to understand
But feelings of superiority of race to war can often lead
And we may be black or brown or white but red is the blood we bleed.
poem by Francis Duggan
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