Words That Burn

The Soldier, by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915)

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,

A body of England’s, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

(see tomorrow’s entry for response)

Above the Dock, by T.E. Hulme (1883-1917)

Above the quiet dock in midnight,

Tangled in the tall mast’s corded height,

Hangs the moon. What seemed so far away

Is but a child’s balloon, forgotten after play.

Driving in Oklahoma, by Carter Revard (1931-)

Unstrung, by Ada Cambridge (1844-1926)

My skies were blue, and my sun was bright,
And, with fingers tender and strong and light,
He woke up the music that slept before—
Echoing, echoing evermore!

By-and-by, my skies grew grey;—
No master-touch on the harp-strings lay,—
Dead silence cradled the notes divine:
His soul had wander’d away from mine.

Idly, o’er strange harps swept his hand,
Seeking for music more wild and grand.
He wearied at last of his fruitless quest,
And he came again to my harp for rest.

But the dust lay thick on the golden wires,
And they would not thrill to the old desires.
The chords, so broken and jarred with pain,
Could never be tender and sweet again.

Farming in a Lilac Shirt, by Leo Dangel (1941-)

I opened the Sears catalog.
It was hard to decide-dress shirts
were all white the last time
I bought one, for Emma’s funeral.
I picked out a color called plum,
but when the shirt arrived,
it seemed more the color of lilacs.
Still, it was beautiful.
No one I knew had a shirt like this.

After chores on Sunday, I dressed
for church. Suddenly the shirt
seemed to be a sissy color,
and I held it up near the window.
In the sun the lilac looked more lilac,
more lovely, but could a man
wear a shirt that color? Someone
might say, “That’s quite the shirt.”
I wore the old shirt to church.

And every Saturday night I thought,
Tomorrow I’ll wear the shirt.
Such a sad terrible waste-to spend
good money on a shirt, a shirt
I even liked, and then not wear it.
I wore the shirt once, on a cold day,
and kept my coat buttoned.

In spring I began wearing the shirt
for everyday, when I was sure
no one would stop by. I wore the shirt
when I milked the cows and in the field
when I planted oats-it fit perfectly.
As I steered the John Deere,
I looked over my shoulder and saw
lilac against a blue sky
filled with white seagulls
following the tractor, and not once
did I wipe my nose on my sleeve.

Suppose in Perfect Reason, by Howard Griffin (1915-1975)
Suppose in perfect reason
you want to die, you want earnestly
knowing for years the meaning
you want above all to die —
recall the eager, the blonde
beavers who died in shelterhalves
of steel or ground like coral
to reefs where there was no choice.
Life defines the power to choose
and when you cut the thread
you are chosen, you become
a total, a togetherness.
More difficult to go on
bowlining silk-end
to end with awkward hand.
If for any cause you want to die
recall the dead who wanted simply
to live and who had every reason
to go on yet who died
for no accurate reason that you
could name. The pure line
is never poetry
but in walking down the street
to the store. — Wrong or right
they could not be colder dead
whatever side of the fence
the beast is.  They eat
out of our mouths, they gaze
through our eyes that look
at a plant. If for any cause
you want profoundly to die,
remember the dead. Re-
collect the dead.
Recall the finished dead.

Late Wisdom, by George Crabbe (1754-1832)

An Evening Meal, by Celia Gilbert, (1932-)

Eden, by Ina Rousseau (1923-2005)

Gretel in Darkness, by Louise Gluck (1943-)