The Souls of the Slain - Richard Burton

The thick lids of Night closed upon me

Alone at the Bill

Of the Isle by the Race

Many caverned bald wrinkled of face

And with darkness and silence the spirit was on me

To brood and be still

No wind fanned the flats of the ocean

Or promontory sides

Or the ooze by the strand

Or the bent bearded slope of the land

Whose base took it's rest amid everlong motion

Of criss crossing tides

Soon from out of the Southward seemed nearing

A whirr as of wings

Waved by mighty vanned flies

Or by night moths of measureless size

And in softness and smoothness well nigh beyond hearing

Of corporal things

And they bore to the bluff and alighted

A dim discerned train

Of sprites without mould

Frameless souls none might touch or might hold

On the ledge by the turreted lantern farsighted

By men of the main

And I heard them say

Home and I knew them

For souls of the felled

On the earth's nether bord

Under Capricorn whither they'd warred

And I neared in my awe

And gave heedfulness to them

With breathings inheld

Then it seemed

There approached from the northward

A senior soul flame

Of the like filmy hue

And he met them and spake

Is it you

O my men

Said they

Aye We bear homeward and hearthward

To list to our fame

I've flown there before you he said then

Your households are well

But your kin linger less

On your glory arid war mightiness

Than on dearer things

Dearer cried these from the dead then

Of what do they tell

Some mothers muse sadly and murmur

Your doings as boys

Recall the quaint ways

Of your babyhood's innocent days

Some pray that ere dying

Your faith had grown firmer

And higher your joys

A father broods Would I had set him

To some humble trade

And so slacked his high fire

And his passionate martial desire

Had told him no stories to woo him and whet him

To this due crusade

And General how hold out our sweethearts

Sworn loyal as doves

Many mourn; many think

It is not unattractive to prink

Them in sables for heroes

Some fickle and fleet hearts

Have found them new loves

And our wives quoth another resignedly

Dwell they on our deeds

Deeds of home; that live yet

Fresh as new deeds of fondness or fret

Ancient words that were kindly expressed or unkindly

These these have their heeds

Alas then it seems that our glory

Weighs less in their thought

Than our old homely acts

And the long ago commonplace facts

Of our lives held by us as scarce part of our story

And rated as nought

Then bitterly some

Was it wise now

To raise the tomb door

For such knowledge Away

But the rest

Fame we prized till today

Yet that hearts keep us green for

Old kindness we prize now

A thousand times more

Thus speaking the trooped apparitions

Began to disband

And resolve them in two

Those whose record was lovely and true

Bore to northward for home

Those of bitter traditions

Again left the land

And towering to seaward in legions

They paused at a spot

Overbending the Race

That engulphing ghast sinister place

Whither headlong they plunged

To the fathomless regions

Of myriads forgot

And the spirits of those who were homing

Passed on rushingly

Like the Pentecost Wind

And the whirr of their wayfaring thinned

And surceased on the sky

And but left in the gloaming

Sea mutterings and me