The Duel
Oh many a duel the world has seen
That was bitter with hate, that was red with gore.
But I sing of a duel by far more cruel
Than ever a poet was sung before.
It was waged by night, yea by day and by night,
With never a pause or halt or rest,
And the curious spot where this battle was fought
Was the throbbing heart in a woman’s breast.
There met two rivals in deadly strife,
And they fought for this woman so pale and proud.
One was a man in the prime of his life,
And one was a corpse in a moldy shroud;
One wrapped in a sheet from his head to his feet,
The other one clothed in worldly fashion;
But a rival to dread is a man who is dead,
If he has been loved in life with passion.
The living lover he battled with sighs,
He strove for the woman with words that burned,
While stiff and stark lay the corpse in the dark,
And silently yearned and yearned and yearned.
One spoke of the rapture that life still held
For hearts that yielded to love’s desire,
And one through the cold grave’s earthly mold
Sent thoughts of a past that were fraught with fire.
The living lover seized hold of her hands –
“You are mine, ” he cried, “and we will not part! ”
But she felt the clutch of the dead man’s touch
On the tense-drawn strings of her aching heart.
Yet the touch was of ice, and she shrank with fear –
Oh! the hands of the dead are cold, so cold –
And warm were the arms that waited near
To gather her close in their clinging fold.
And warm was the light in the living eyes,
But the eyes of the dead, how they stare and stare!
With sudden surrender she turned to the tender
And passionate lover who wooed her there.
Farewell to sorrow, hail, sweet to-morrow!
The battle was over, the duel was done.
They swooned in the blisses of love’s fond kisses,
And the dead man stared on in the dark alone.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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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 the trumpet blown above:
It will not raise from out the dark
Dead love.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The Pale Woman
I spoke to the pale and heavy-lidded woman, and said:
O pale and heavy-lidded woman, why is your cheek
Pale as the dead, and what are your eyes afraid lest they speak?
And the woman answered me: I am pale as the dead,
For the dead have loved me, and I dream of the dead.
But I see in the eyes of the living, as a living fire,
The thing that my soul in triumph tells me I have forgot;
And therefore mine eyelids are heavy, and I raise them not,
For always I see in the eyes of men the old desire,
And I fear lest they see that I desire their desire.
poem by Arthur Symons
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All Souls
I
A THIN moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
II
Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that grope -
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.
III
And where should a man bring his sweet to woo
But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?
Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss,
The empty hands that their fellows miss,
Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green,
Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
IV
And now that they rise and walk in the cold,
Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.
Let them see us and hear us, and say: 'Ah, thus
In the prime of the year it went with us!'
Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist,
Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.
V
Till they say, as they hear us - poor dead, poor dead! -
'Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed -
Just a thrill of the old remembered pains
To kindle a flame in our frozen veins,
Just a touch, and a sight, and a floating apart,
As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart -
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear, and the dead have sight.'
VI
And where should the living feel alive
But here in this wan white humming hive,
As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold,
And one by one they creep back to the fold?
And where should a man hold his mate and say:
'One more, one more, ere we go their way'?
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the living can learn by the churchyard light.
VII
And how should we break faith who have seen
Those dead lips plight with the mist between,
And how forget, who have seen how soon
They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?
How scorn, how hate, how strive, we too,
Who must do so soon as those others do?
For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day,
And behold, with the light the dead are away. . . .
poem by Edith Wharton
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A Question
AND so in the death-darkened chamber they met,
The woman that once he had loved and the one he loved yet—
The wife who had warped his desire and the woman he could not forget.
They stood by the bier where between them he slept,
And the love he had lost in his wife to her swimming eyes leapt;
But the woman his life had belonged to—his paramour—spoke not nor wept.
It was only a story of sated desire—
Of a love merely sensual burnt to an ash by its fire,
And a husband who turned to a more luscious love that was his for the hire.
All had sinned. For the husband had killed by his clutch,
Rough-handed, the fruit of a love that had dropped at his touch.
One woman's great sin was not loving, his wife's was in loving too much.
And so he had died; it was over at last;
And across him the two women looked at each other aghast—
Across his cold corse, and across the cold corse of the loathsome dead Past!
Then the smouldering love of the wife leapt to flame,
And she poured forth her kisses upon him, and called on his name.
But the other said “No, he is nothing to you; soul and body I claim!”
They looked at each other awhile. Said the wife wearily,
“He is mine; for I loved him, and ever shall love him; let be!”
But the other sneered, “No, he is mine, and mine only, because he loved me!”
Then the two laid their hands on the body between;
And fought for it, wife against paramour, fiercely, unseen—
For the body diseased and polluted, as ever his spirit had been.
And this is a question for answer in Hell:
To which of the two did his spirit belong, can you tell?
Think, was it the woman he loved, or the one who had loved him too well?
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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A Duel For Love
I fought a duel for my love
And I lost the fight
I fell awkward unto the floor
Became blinded for a while
I lay and bled alone
In the gutter of my self pity
To have fought for love
And watched it become lost
Became a living hell
Constant my thoughts played on
Every encounter of that duel
Had a better man won
Of were it just a misfortune
Something I would later remorse
I became dishevelled for a while
The world held no care for me
And I held no care for it
The anger of a broken heart
Defeated in a duel for love
Time has passed slowly
And though the pain has eased
A deep scar remains
From a duel for love
I fought and lost
poem by Matthew Holloway
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The Tryst
I raised the veil, I loosed the bands,
I took the dead thing from its place.
Like a warm stream in frozen lands
My lips went wandering on her face,
My hands burnt in her hands.
She could not stay me, being dead;
Her body here was mine to hold.
What if her lips had lost their red?
To me they always tasted cold
With the cold words she said.
Did my breath run along her hair,
And free the pulse, and fire the brain,
My wild blood wake her wild blood there?
Here eyelids lifted wide again
In a blue, sudden stare.
Beneath my fierce, profane caress
The whole white length of body moved;
The drowsy bosom seemed to press
As if against a breast beloved,
Then fail for weariness.
No, not that anguish! Christ forbid
That I should raise such dead! I rose,
Stifled the mouth with lilies, hid
Those eyes, And drew the long hair close,
And shut the coffin lid.
My cold brow on the cold wood laid,
Quiet and close to-night we lie.
No cruel words her lips have said.
I shall not take nor she deny.
The dead is with the dead.
poem by Muriel Stuart
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Coroner's Day
A torn shirt smeared in red
On the table calmly sleeps the dead
Strewn around are organs and the heart
Incredible to imagine them as the departed’s part!
Useless as they are now experimental blocks
Drained of life heedless to the clocks
No love no emotion in the cold dim room
Is living natural or more so is doom?
Reeking of the dead eerie scissors sweep
One by one they cut strong and deep
Dismembering the lover cutting through the brave
But no show of courage when the abode is grave!
Drying bloods of passion drip from the dead
The once living corpse on the table goes fade
With no words or voice feelings blown away
He could at last make the coroner’s day!
poem by Pradip Chattopadhyay
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The Vain Spell
THE house sleeps dark and the moon wakes white,
The fields are alight with dew;
'Oh, will you not come to me, Love, to-night?
I have waited the whole night through,
For I knew,
O Heart of my heart, I knew by my heart,
That the night of all nights is this,
When elm shall crack and lead shall part,
When moulds shall sunder and shot bolts start
To let you through to my kiss.'
So spake she alone in the lonely house.
She had wrapped her round with the spell,
She called the call, she vowed the vow,
And the heart she had pledged knew well
That this was the night, the only night,
When the moulds might be wrenched apart,
When the living and dead, in the dead of the night,
Might clasp once more, in the grave's despite,
For the price of a living heart.
But out in the grave the corpse lay white
And the grave clothes were wet with dew;
'Oh, will you not come to me, Love, to-night,
I have waited the whole night through,
For I knew
That I dared not leave my grave for an hour
Since the hour of all hours is near,
When you shall come to the hollow bower,
In a cast of the wind, in a waft of the Power,
To the heart that to-night beats here!'
The moon grows pale and the house sleeps still
Ah, God! do the dead forget?
The grave is white and the bed is chill,
But a guest may be coming yet.
But the hour has come and the hour has gone
That never will come again;
Love's only chance is over and done,
And the quick and the dead are twain, not one,
And the price has been paid in vain.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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An Open Boat
O, what is that whimpering there in the darkness?
'Let him lie in my arms. He is breathing, I know.
Look. I'll wrap all my hair round his neck' - 'The sea's rising,
The boat must be lightened. He's dead. He must go.'
See - quick - by that flash, where the bitter foam tosses,
The cloud of white faces, in the black open boat,
And the wild pleading woman that clasps her dead lover
And wraps her loose hair round his breast and his throat.
'Come, lady, he's dead.' - 'No, I feel his heart beating,
He's living, I know. But he's numbed with the cold.
See, I'm wrapping my hair all around him to warm him.' -
- 'No. We can't keep the dead, dear. Come, loosen your hold.
'Come. Loosen your fingers.' - ' O God, let me keep him!' -
O, hide it, black night! Let the winds have their way!
And there are no voices or ghosts from that darkness,
To fret the bare seas at the breaking of day.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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You would have understood me, had you waited
You would have understood me, had you waited;
I could have loved you, dear! as well as he:
Had we not been impatient, dear! and fated
Always to disagree.
What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter:
Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid.
Though all the words we ever spake were bitter,
Shall I reproach you dead?
Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover
All the old anger, setting us apart:
Always, in all, in truth was I your lover;
Always, I held your heart.
I have met other women who were tender,
As you were cold, dear! with a grace as rare.
Think you, I turned to them, or made surrender,
I who had found you fair?
Had we been patient, dear! ah, had you waited,
I had fought death for you, better than he:
But from the very first, dear! we were fated
Always to disagree.
Late, late, I come to you, now death discloses
Love that in life was not to be our part:
On your low lying mound between the roses,
Sadly I cast my heart.
I would not waken you: nay! this is fitter;
Death and the darkness give you unto me;
Here we who loved so, were so cold and bitter,
Hardly can disagree.
poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson
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A Dream Of Resurrection
SO heavenly beautiful it lay,
It was less like a human corse
Than that fair shape in which perforce
A lost hope clothes itself alway.
The dream showed very plain: the bed
Where that known unknown face reposed,--
A woman's face with eyelids closed,
A something precious that was dead;
A something, lost on this side life,
By which the mourner came and stood,
And laid down, ne'er to be indued,
All flaunting robes of earthly strife;
Shred off, like votive locks of hair,
Youth's ornaments of pride and strength,
And cast them in their golden length
The silence of that bier to share.
No tears fell,--but with gazings long
Lorn memory tried to print that face
On the heart's ever-vacant place,
With a sun-finger, sharp and strong.--
Then kisses, dropping without sound,
And solemn arms wound round the dead,
And lifting from the natural bed
Into the coffin's strange new bound.
Yet still no farewell, or belief
In death, no more than one believes
In some dread truth that sudden weaves
The whole world in a shroud of grief.
And still unanswered kisses; still
Warm clingings to the image cold
With an incredulous faith's close fold,
Creative in its fierce 'I will.'
Hush,--hush! the marble eyelids move,
The kissed lips quiver into breath:
Avaunt, thou mockery of Death!
Avaunt!--we are conquerors, I and Love.
Corpse of dead Hope, awake, arise,
A living Hope that only slept
Until the tears thus overwept
Had washed the blindness from our eyes.
Come back into the upper day:
Pluck off these cerements. Patient shroud,
We'll wrap thee as a garment proud
Round the fair shape we thought was clay.
Clasp, arms; cling, soul; eyes, drink anew
The beauty that returns with breath:
Faith, that out-loved this trance-like death,
May see this resurrection too.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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The Dead To The Living
Work while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
IN the childhood of April, while purple woods
With the young year's blood in them smiled,
I passed through the lanes and the wakened fields,
And stood by the grave of the child.
And the pain awoke that is never dead
Though it sometimes sleeps, and again
It set its teeth in this heart of mine,
And fastened its claws in my brain:
For it seemed so hard that the little hands
And the little well-loved head
Should be out of reach of my living lips,
And be side by side with the dead--
Not side by side with us who had loved,
But with these who had never seen
The grace of the smile, the gold of the hair,
And the eyes of my baby-queen.
Yet with trees about where the brown birds build,
And with long green grass above,
She lies in the cold sweet breast of earth
Beyond the reach of our love;
Whatever befalls in the coarse loud world,
We know she will never wake.
When I thought of the sorrow she might have known,
I was almost glad for her sake. . . .
Tears might have tired those kiss-closed eyes,
Grief hardened the mouth I kissed;
I was almost glad that my dear was dead
Because of the pain she had missed.
Oh, if I could but have died a child
With a white child-soul like hers,
As pure as the wind-flowers down in the copse,
Where the soul of the spring's self stirs;
Or if I had only done with it all,
And might lie by her side unmoved!
I envied the very clods of earth
Their place near the child I loved!
And my soul rose up in revolt at life,
As I stood dry-eyed by her grave,
When sudden the grass of the churchyard sod
Rolled back like a green smooth wave;
The brown earth looked like the brown sea rocks,
The tombstones were white like spray,
And white like surf were the curling folds
Of the shrouds where the dead men lay;
For each in his place with his quiet face
I saw the dead lie low,
Who had worked and suffered and found life sad,
So many sad years ago.
Unchanged by time I saw them lie
As when first they were laid to rest,
The tired eyes closed, the sad lips still,
And the work-worn hands on the breast.
There were some who had found the green world so grey,
They had left it before their time,
And some were little ones like my dear,
And some had died in their prime;
And some were old, they had had their fill
Of bitter unfruitful hours,
And knew that none of them, none, had known
A flower of a hope like ours!
Through their shut eyelids the dead looked up,
And without a voice they said:
'We lived without hope, without hope we died,
And hopeless we lie here dead;
And death is better than life that draws
Pain in, as it draws in breath,
If life never dreams of a coming day
When life shall not envy death.
Through the dark of our hours and our times we lived,
Uncheered by a single ray
Of such hope as lightens the lives of you
Who are finding life hard to-day;
With our little lanterns of human love
We lighted our dark warm night--
But you in the chill of the dawn are set
With your face to the eastern light.
Freedom is waiting with hands held out
Till you tear the veil from her face--
And when once men have seen the light of her eyes,
And felt her divine embrace,
The light of the world will be risen indeed,
And will shine in the eyes of men,
And those who come after will find life fair,
And their lives worth living then!
Will you strive to the light in your loud rough world,
That these things may come to pass,
Or lie in the shadow beside the child,
And strive to the sun through the grass?'
'My world while I may,' I cried; 'but you
Whose lives were as dark as your grave?'
'We too are a part of the coming light,'
They called through the smooth green wave.
Their white shrouds gleamed as the flood of green
Rolled over and hid them from me--
Hid all but the little hands and the hair,
And the face that I always see.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Stone
"And will you cut a stone for him,
To set above his head?
And will you cut a stone for him--
A stone for him?" she said.
Three days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead--
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of a warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired--
A lively stripling, brave and tall,
And sure of all his heart desired . . .
A flash, a shock,
A rumbling fall . . .
And, broken 'neath the broken rock,
A lifeless heap, with face of clay,
And still as any stone he lay,
With eyes that saw the end of all.
I went to break the news to her:
And I could hear my own heart beat
With dread of what my lips might say;
But some poor fool had sped before;
And, flinging wide her father's door,
Had blurted out the news to her,
Had struck her lover dead for her,
Had struck the girl's heart dead in her,
Had struck life, lifeless, at a word,
And dropped it at her feet:
Then hurried on his witless way,
Scarce knowing she had heard.
And when I came, she stood alone--
A woman, turned to stone:
And, though no word at all she said,
I knew that all was known.
Because her heart was dead,
She did not sigh nor moan.
His mother wept:
She could not weep.
Her lover slept:
She could not sleep.
Three days, three nights,
She did not stir:
Three days, three nights,
Were one to her,
Who never closed her eyes
From sunset to sunrise,
From dawn to evenfall--
Her tearless, staring eyes,
That, seeing naught, saw all.
The fourth night when I came from work,
I found her at my door.
"And will you cut a stone for him?"
She said: and spoke no more:
But followed me, as I went in,
And sank upon a chair;
And fixed her grey eyes on my face,
With still, unseeing stare.
And, as she waited patiently,
I could not bear to feel
Those still, grey eyes that followed me,
Those eyes that plucked the heart from me,
Those eyes that sucked the breath from me
And curdled the warm blood in me,
Those eyes that cut me to the bone,
And cut my marrow like cold steel.
And so I rose and sought a stone;
And cut it smooth and square:
And, as I worked, she sat and watched,
Beside me, in her chair.
Night after night, by candlelight,
I cut her lover's name:
Night after night, so still and white,
And like a ghost she came;
And sat beside me, in her chair,
And watched with eyes aflame.
She eyed each stroke,
And hardly stirred:
she never spoke
A single word:
And not a sound or murmur broke
The quiet, save the mallet stroke.
With still eyes ever on my hands,
With eyes that seemed to burn my hands,
My wincing, overwearied hands,
She watched, with bloodless lips apart,
And silent, indrawn breath:
And every stroke my chisel cut,
Death cut still deeper in her heart:
The two of us were chiselling,
Together, I and Death.
And when at length my job was done,
And I had laid the mallet by,
As if, at last, her peace were won,
She breathed his name, and, with a sigh,
Passed slowly through the open door:
And never crossed my threshold more.
Next night I laboured late, alone,
To cut her name upon the stone.
poem by Wilfred Wilson Gibson
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Soul On Fire
Theres a flame that leads our souls astray
No ones safe from its tender touch of pain
And every day its looking for new slaves
To celebrate the beauty of the grave
We are like the living dead
Sacrificing all we have
For a frozen heart and a soul on fire
We are like the living dead
Craving for deliverance
With a frozen heart and a soul on fire
And again were falling for disgrace
And hate will shelter us from the rain
We are enslaved by the sacred heart of shame
And gently raped by the light of day
We are like the living dead
Sacrificing all we have
For a frozen heart and a soul on fire
We are like the living dead
Craving for deliverence
With a frozen heart and a soul on fire
Addicted to our divine despair
(? )
But you will follow us to death
We are like the living dead
Sacrificing all we have
For a frozen heart and a soul on fire
We are like the living dead
Craving for deliverence
With a frozen heart and a soul on fire
With a soul on
Soul on
Soul on
Fire
Soul on fire
song performed by by H.i.m. (his Infernal Majesty)
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Soul On Fire
There's a flame that leads our souls astray
No one's safe from its tender touch of pain
And every day it's looking for new slaves
To celebrate the beauty of the grave
We are like the living dead
Sacrificing all we have
For a frozen heart and a soul on fire
We are like the living dead
Craving for deliverance
With a frozen heart and a soul on fire
And again we're falling for disgrace
And hate will shelter us from the rain
We are enslaved by the sacred heart of shame
And gently raped by the light of day
We are like the living dead
Sacrificing all we have
For a frozen heart and a soul on fire
We are like the living dead
Craving for deliverence
With a frozen heart and a soul on fire
Addicted to our divine despair
The venom of the cross we bear
The guilt will follow us to death
We are like the living dead
Sacrificing all we have
For a frozen heart and a soul on fire
We are like the living dead
Craving for deliverence
With a frozen heart and a soul on fire
With a soul on
Soul on
Soul on
Fire
Soul on fire
song performed by by H.I.M.
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mockery
Why do we grudge our sweets so to the living
Who, God knows, find at best too much of gall,
And then with generous, open hands kneel, giving
Unto the dead our all?
Why do we pierce the warm hearts, sin or sorrow,
With idle jests, or scorn, or cruel sneers,
And when it cannot know, on some to-morrow,
Speak of its woe through tears?
What do the dead care, for the tender token—
The love, the praise, the floral offerings?
But palpitating, living hearts are broken
For want of just these things.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Everlasting Gaze
You know I'm not dead
Now you know where I've been
As you sleep
Torn I am
Weighted down
Patiently
Born of love
You know I'm not dead
I'm just living in my head
Forever waiting
On the ways of your desire
You always find a way
And thru it all
Into us all you move
Forgotten touch
Forbidden thought
We can never have enough
You know I'm not dead
Found below
The creatures scream
Stranglehold
A god machine
Begging to
Tear us out
Worn as hope
You know I'm not dead I'm just the tears inside your head
Forever waiting
On the ways of your desire
You always find a way
And thru it all into us all you move
Forgotten touch
Forbidden thought
We can never have enough
You know I'm not dead
We all want to hold in the everlasting gaze
Enchanted in the rapture of his sentimental sway
But underneath the wheels lie the skulls of every c.o.g.
The fickle fascination of an everlasting god
You know I'm not dead
I'm just living in my head
Forever waiting
Forever waiting on cruel death
You know I'm not dead
I'm just living for myself
Forever waiting
You know I'm not dead
song performed by by Smashing Pumpkins
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Lament
PEACE, your little child is dead:
Peace, I cannot weep with you;
I have no more tears to shed;
I have mourned my baby too—
I, that ne'er was wooed or wed.
Love has looked within your eyes,
Love has filled your hungry heart;
You have borne the babe, your prize;
You have blossomed, done your part,
Though the flower faded lies.
But to me was love denied—
God had said it might not be;
Still my hungry hopes abide;
All the motherhood in me
Aches—and starves, unsatisfied.
How my soul has yearned for thee,
Sweet, sweet unborn child of mine!
How thy life would tenderly
Round thy mother's life entwine—
Hope of hopes that may not be.
How thy hands would pluck my breast!
I have felt them o'er and o'er,
And thy soft, sweet skin caressed,
Baby mine I never bore!
Did I dream so?—dreams are best.
You have nothing now to fear,
Mother; you have fondled him,
Held his pretty face so near,
Laid your lips to each soft limb—
He is dead, but he was dear.
You have something you may mourn,
Some sweet memory to kiss;
I am lonelier, more forlorn;
God has left me only this—
My sweet babe that was not born.
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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You are mine
Right through the night
you have been mine
and while time got wings,
I felt your soft body
clinging to me
and there was something
in your touch and embrace
that left another state of grace.
You were mine
when passion ran
like a wild fire
and your breath,
brushed my cheek
and cries of rapture
went in to the dark night
and pleasure found its mark.
In every possibility and way
that life goes on,
in every attitude and feeling,
you are my woman and my wife
and the one
around whom I build my life.
When I hold you in my arms
it feels as if nothing can part us
and I hear your true heart
beating for me
and I am free from self
and love with more than mere passion.
You are mine and will forever
be with me
and even when this life
speeds past its limits,
it’s just like the morning mist
and the infinite thing that binds us
still remains in my heart
and in a way
we can never part again.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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