<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">To the Unknown Dead</h1><h1 align="center" class="head">I.</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">TO all the fallen, all the nameless</p><p class="line">Host of the unremembered slain, </p><p class="line">Who noteless fought and perished fameless, </p><p class="line">Yet won the cross- the cross of pain, </p><p class="line">Greeting I bring and requiem. </p><p class="line">May light perpetual shine on them.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">In Pére Lachaise among the marbles </p><p class="line">I marked how human nature tires </p><p class="line">To gather grapes of thorns, or garbles</p><p class="line">Sorrow with insincerities. </p><p class="line">Little I read but hope and praise </p><p class="line">Inscribed for those in Pére Lachaise.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Yet flesh recoils and spirit falters </p><p class="line">Before the secret of the pit. </p><p class="line">Brave it who may, no glozing alters </p><p class="line">That menace in the gloom of it.</p><p class="line">'A child's dread of the darkness!' Well, </p><p class="line">Is any fear more terrible ?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Auroral Lights of perished passion </p><p class="line">'Their streamers on the night unfurl; </p><p class="line">Or memory's wan moonbeams fashion</p><p class="line">'Mid falling tears her arch of pearl; </p><p class="line">And still the eternal silence saith: </p><p class="line">Death is not otherwise than death.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">-Even destruction's gulf, the lightless </p><p class="line">Deep which is called the outer dark, </p><p class="line">So void that thought itself is flightless, </p><p class="line">So formless that no dream for ark </p><p class="line">Floats on oblivion's flood to hive </p><p class="line">Some lingering waifs of self alive.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Wherefore, as one who makes libation, </p><p class="line">Between the living and the dead </p><p class="line">I stand, and give you salutation, </p><p class="line">Lords of the Terror. Who have said </p><p class="line">Clear words of death? If any hear </p><p class="line">My call, make answer! Rise! Appear!</p></div><h1 align="center" class="head">II.</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Lo ! Sphinx, the ancient wisdom, rises, </p><p class="line">She who avers not nor denies. </p><p class="line">All things she knows and all despises: </p><p class="line">Beyond the streaming galaxies </p><p class="line">Her eyes discern the end of things, </p><p class="line">And her smile mocks it while she sings:-</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Why for the fruit forbidden </p><p class="line">Of knowledge will ye forfeit life's illusion, </p><p class="line">Seeing ye yourselves in Maya's veil are woven? </p><p class="line">Seek ye the secret hidden? </p><p class="line">Hope is a mocker; love, the heart's confusion; </p><p class="line">And faith, unreasoning trust in things unproven."</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Thou for whom life seems over, </p><p class="line">Whose spirit haunts the wastes of time departed, </p><p class="line">Gaze in mine eyes which see the truth and show it. </p><p class="line">Behold thy love, O lover, </p><p class="line">-Thy long-lost love-grown sleek and sleepy-hearted. </p><p class="line">Thou art forgot: be comforted to know it."</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"And thou, whose day rejoices </p><p class="line">In youth and riches and the love of woman, </p><p class="line">Look in mine eyes. Yea, is thy pride abated, </p><p class="line">Beholding fate who poises </p><p class="line">Her scales which weigh the worth of all things human </p><p class="line">Against a little dust, O heart elated?î</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">"Farewell. Thou canst not stay nor hasten </p><p class="line">The flux of the eternal dream; </p><p class="line">Nor 'scape the hour when death shall fasten </p><p class="line">Upon thee in the kiss supreme, </p><p class="line">As on thy lips my lips are pressed </p><p class="line">Hard, and my talons in thy breast."</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">O singer of the hollow places </p><p class="line">Where melancholy listless broods </p><p class="line">Beside forsaken tasks or paces, </p><p class="line">Forlorn, her echoing solitudes, </p><p class="line">If that indeed thou speakest sooth, </p><p class="line">Perish with thine ignoble truth</p></div><h1 align="center" class="head">III.</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Then to my mouth remembrance lifted </p><p class="line">The cup which Thule's king of old </p><p class="line">Was wont to drink from; and there drifted </p><p class="line">The music of the Bowl of Gold </p><p class="line">Aeolian o'er me, and I knew </p><p class="line">That man's inveterate hope was true.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The silver cord is loosed, and broken </p><p class="line">The golden bowl: again the dust </p><p class="line">Returns to earth." What ruth unspoken </p><p class="line">Wells upwards in the words august! </p><p class="line">What swell of the heart's bitterness </p><p class="line">Heaves underneath their tranquil stress!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">O mourning voice, so vast and tender, </p><p class="line">Draping thy requiem as a pall </p><p class="line">Of hushed magnificence, a splendour </p><p class="line">Dim on the common doom of all, </p><p class="line">Thine is indeed a gentle word </p><p class="line">For death--the loosened silver cord.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">But for the dead thou hast no pan, </p><p class="line">No laurel crown, no branch of palm, </p><p class="line">Only a threnody lethean </p><p class="line">Serene in all-surrendering calm;</p><p class="line">And, like a bell that surges toll, </p><p class="line">The burden of the Golden Bowl.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Yet rises up the old misgiving:</p><p class="line">Is it song's sorcery that transmutes </p><p class="line">To gold the pitcher-sherds which, living, </p><p class="line">Were earthier of the earth than brutes ? </p><p class="line">Can this be said of such as they, </p><p class="line">Poor cruses of coarse-shapen clay?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Gold? So the phrase is, thus miscalling </p><p class="line">That swarming life, obscure and null, </p><p class="line">Rolled by the river ever falling </p><p class="line">Into an ocean never full. </p><p class="line">-Drift and drab ooze to floor the sea </p><p class="line">Whose waters are eternity.</p></div><h1 align="center" class="head">IV.</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Before me rose austere, impassive, </p><p class="line">A cliff-like scarp of limestone grey. </p><p class="line">Lofty it stood, a barrier massive </p><p class="line">Athwart the cypress-bordered way; </p><p class="line">And on the face of it a gloom </p><p class="line">Which seemed a cavern or a tomb.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">And sculptured shapes of man and maiden </p><p class="line">By that dark entrance I beheld. </p><p class="line">One knelt in prayer; one, overladen </p><p class="line">With the numb miseries of eld, </p><p class="line">Submissive bowed. Another bent </p><p class="line">Earthward her face. Some crouched or leant</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Clinging together as the haven </p><p class="line">Of nothingness they gathered nigh. </p><p class="line">But under them these words engraven </p><p class="line">Spake for the sculptor's imagery: </p><p class="line">"They that in darkness sat have seen </p><p class="line">Great light." And I descried between</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The frowning walls two lovers sleeping </p><p class="line">As though the Everlasting Arms </p><p class="line">Indeed were under them and keeping </p><p class="line">Far from their rest all needs and harms. </p><p class="line">And light which seemed no light of day </p><p class="line">Dwelt on them like the Shekinah.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The poppy of oblivion covers </p><p class="line">The legend and the name of these. </p><p class="line">Roses lie strewn by pilgrim-lovers </p><p class="line">On Abélard and Héloise </p><p class="line">Summer on summer, year by year, </p><p class="line">But never a blossom withers here.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">For to the weak, the world-defeated, </p><p class="line">Bound on the Ixionian wheel </p><p class="line">Of toil, or trodden down and treated </p><p class="line">As dross that clogs our age of steel;</p><p class="line">Ay, and when dead, like worthless dross </p><p class="line">Whose bodies fill the common fosse,</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The lives awry, the misbegotten, </p><p class="line">Foredoomed to failure from their birth, </p><p class="line">With stunted soul and body rotten, </p><p class="line">The disinherited of earth, </p><p class="line">This monument of limestone grey </p><p class="line">Was carven by Bartholomé.</p></div><h1 align="center" class="head">V.</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Why tinsel truth to mimic glory, </p><p class="line">Making pretence each valiant deed </p><p class="line">And death shall live renowned in story </p><p class="line">While men by generations bleed? </p><p class="line">A list, a number and a name-</p><p class="line">Such is the recompense of fame!</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Fame! When through death's tremendous portal </p><p class="line">The soul emerging fronts the Sea </p><p class="line">Of Light, and skims on wings immortal</p><p class="line">Its waves of shimmering melody, </p><p class="line">What will she care if men below </p><p class="line">Extol her earthly name or no?</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">The periods of the panegyric </p><p class="line">May roll sonorous over them </p><p class="line">Who had small praise in life; the lyric </p><p class="line">May crown, as crowns a diadem </p><p class="line">The empty catafalque. But they, </p><p class="line">Who died for us, are far away</p></div><p class="byline">John Gurdon.</p> (The <em>English Review</em>) </body></html> · Great War