| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| A Dead March |
| | | Cosmo Monkhouse (b. 1840) |
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| PLAY me a march, low-ton’d and slow—a march for a silent tread, | |
| Fit for the wandering feet of one who dreams of the silent dead, | |
| Lonely, between the bones below and the souls that are overhead. | |
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| Here for a while they smil’d and sang, alive in the interspace, | |
| Here with the grass beneath the foot, and the stars above the face, | 5 |
| Now are their feet beneath the grass, and whither has flown their grace? | |
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| Who shall assure us whence they come, or tell us the way they go? | |
| Verily, life with them was joy, and, now they have left us, woe, | |
| Once they were not, and now they are not, and this is the sum we know. | |
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| Orderly range the seasons due, and orderly roll the stars. | 10 |
| How shall we deem the soldier brave who frets of his wounds and scars? | |
| Are we as senseless brutes that we should dash at the well-seen bars? | |
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| No, we are here, with feet unfix’d, but ever as if with lead | |
| Drawn from the orbs which shine above to the orb on which we tread, | |
| Down to the dust from which we came and with which we shall mingle dead. | 15 |
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| No, we are here to wait, and work, and strain our banish’d eyes, | |
| Weary and sick of soil and toil, and hungry and fain for skies | |
| Far from the reach of wingless men, and not to be scal’d with cries. | |
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| No, we are here to bend our necks to the yoke of tyrant Time, | |
| Welcoming all the gifts he gives us—glories of youth and prime, | 20 |
| Patiently watching them all depart as our heads grow white as rime. | |
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| Why do we mourn the days that go—for the same sun shines each day, | |
| Ever a spring her primrose hath, and ever a May her may; | |
| Sweet as the rose that died last year is the rose that is born to-day. | |
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| Do we not too return, we men, as ever the round earth whirls? | 25 |
| Never a head is dimm’d with gray but another is sunn’d with curls; | |
| She was a girl and he was a boy, but yet there are boys and girls. | |
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| Ah, but alas for the smile of smiles that never but one face wore; | |
| Ah, for the voice that has flown away like a bird to an unseen shore; | |
| Ah, for the face—the flower of flowers—that blossoms on earth no more. | 30 |
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