<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Island of Skyros</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line"><span class="smallcaps">Here</span>, where we stood together, we three men,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Before the war had swept us to the East</p><p class="line">Three thousand miles away, I stand again</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And hear the bells, and breathe, and go to feast.</p><p class="line">We trod the same path, to the selfsame place,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Yet here I stand, having beheld their graves,</p><p class="line">Skyros whose shadows the great seas erase,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">And Seddul Bahr that ever more blood craves.</p><p class="line">So, since we communed here, our bones have been</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Nearer, perhaps, than they again will be,</p><p class="line">Earth and the worldwide battle lie between,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Death lies between, and friend-destroying sea.</p><p class="line">Yet here, a year ago, we talked and stood</p><p class="line">As I stand now, with pulses beating blood.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">I saw her like a shadow on the sky</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">In the last light, a blur upon the sea,</p><p class="line">Then the gale's darkness put the shadow by,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">But from one grave that island talked to me;</p><p class="line">And, in the midnight, in the breaking storm,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">I saw its blackness and a blinking light,</p><p class="line">And thought, "So death obscures your gentle form,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">So memory strives to make the darkness bright;</p><p class="line">And, in that heap of rocks, your body lies,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Part of the island till the planet ends,</p><p class="line">My gentle comrade, beautiful and wise,</p><p class="line" style="text-indent:5%">Part of this crag this bitter surge offends,</p><p class="line">While I, who pass, a little obscure thing,</p><p class="line">War with this force, and breathe, and am its king."</p></div><p class="byline">John Masefield</p></body></html> · Great War