Kings have no such couch as thine,
As the green that folds thy grave.
Let them rave.

Wild words wander here and there;
God's great gift of speech abused
Makes thy memory confused;
But let them rave.

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,
You may take the gear to the stead,
All the sweat o' your brow, boys,
Will never get beer and bread.
The seed's waste, I know, boys,
There's not a blade will grow, boys,

'Tis cropped out, I trow, boys,
And Tommy's dead.

Send the colt to fair, boys,

He's going blind, as I said,

My old eyes can't bear, boys,
To see him in the shed;

The cow's dry and spare, boys,
She's neither here nor there, boys,
I doubt she's badly bred;
Stop the mill to-morn, boys,
There'll be no more corn, 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,
not in my head,
ecious sight, boys-
llowed!

cold to my tread,
izen and thin,

veled and shred,
wn by the loan

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