Kings have no such couch as thine, Wild words wander here and there; The balm-cricket carols clear In the green that folds thy grave. Let them rave. Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892] A DEAD MARCH PLAY me a march, low-toned and slow-a march for a silent tread, Fit for the wandering feet of one who dreams of the silent dead, Lonely, between the bones below and the souls that are overhead. Here for a while they smiled and sang, alive in the interspace, Here with the grass beneath the foot, and the stars above the face, Now are their feet beneath the grass, and whither has flown their grace? Who shall assure us whence they come, or tell us the way they go? Verily, life with them was joy, and, now they have left us, woe. Once they were not, and now they are not, and this is the sum we know. Orderly range the seasons due, and orderly roll the stars. How shall we deem the soldier brave who frets of his wounds and scars? Are we as senseless brutes that we should dash at the wellseen bars? we men, as ever the round earth with gray but another is sunned with as a boy, but yet there are boys and hile of smiles that never but one face has flown away like a bird to an unflower of flowers-that blossoms on Cosmo Monkhouse [1840-1901] TOMMY'S DEAD You may give over plow, boys, 'Tis cropped out, I trow, boys, Send the colt to fair, boys, He's going blind, as I said, My old eyes can't bear, boys, The cow's dry and spare, boys, Neither white nor red; There's no sign of grass, boys, You may sell the goat and the ass, boys, The land's not what it was, boys, And the beasts must be fed: You may turn Peg away, boys, You may pay off old Ned, We've had a dull day, boys, And Tommy's dead. Move my chair on the floor, boys, Let me turn my head: She's standing there in the door, boys, Your sister Winifred! Take her away from me, boys, Your sister Winifred! Move me round in my place, boys, Let me turn my head, s Dead n me, boys, leath-bed, hin face, boys, death-bed! it be, boys, nd said, ing at me, boys, my head; k-tree, boys, -bed, ale as she, boys, t used to be red. ng not right, boys, cold to my tread, veled and shred, em bone by bone, open and spread, teeth of the land, te a dead man's hand, of a dead man's head. ng but cinders and sand, the mouse have fed, mer's empty and cold; and wold turn my head ildew and a mold, ping out overhead, 3315 |