Weekly Contest
Classic poem of the day
Is there aught you need that my hands withhold,
Rich gifts of raiment or grain or gold?
Lo! I have flung to the East and West
Priceless treasures torn from my breast,
And yielded the sons of my stricken womb
To the drum-beats of duty, the sabres of doom.
Gathered like pearls in their alien gravès
Silent they sleep by the Persian waves,
Scattered like shells on Egyptian sands,
They lie with pale brows and brave, broken hands,
They are strewn like blossoms mown down by chance
On the blood-brown meadows of Flanders and France.
Can ye measure the grief of the tears I weep
Or compass the woe of the watch I keep?
Or the pride that thrills thro' my heart's despair
And the hope that comforts the anguish of prayer?
And the far sad glorious vision I see
Of the torn red banners of Victory?
When the terror and tumult of hate shall cease
And life be refashioned on anvils of peace,
And your love shall offer memorial thanks
To the comrades who fought in your dauntless ranks,
And you honour the deeds of the deathless ones,
Remember the blood of my martyred sons!
member poem of the day
Requiem for the fishermen,
who lay at rest in the depths,
once, the sea's foamy spray
flecked their weatherworn faces,
maritime spirits,
still breathing in their children's dreams,
chapped, ruddy hands
once embraced their loyal wives,
the legend of their lives-
is spoken in the frigid winter waves.
In funereal respect,
come to the sailors' cathedral,
sing a hymn of the sea,
their families' grief will reflect
beyond their own years-
within the tides is their briny tears.
This poem is in the Fall/Winter Highland Park Poetry, "The Muses' Gallery".
