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SHE SAID ..., by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: She said, 'not only music; brave men marching'
Last Line: "mary, it is the same with me,"" she said."
Subject(s): African Americans - Military; World War Ii; Second World War


(Remembering Corporal Arthur Long, Negro, the first soldier
from Alcorn County, Mississippi, reported killed in
action in the invasion of Normandy.)

She said, "Not only music; brave men marching
Under the stripes and stars and sun's shining:
War is sudden news. Your son was killed
The tenth of June in France. Letter follows.

"Oh, he was bold to hasten peace," she said.
"And he was brave. And he desired tomorrow.
He was too young to be compelled from sunlight,
And moonlight; from the light of stars forever."

She would ask questions, morbid on her mind:
The fatal bullet found him; did he scream?
Lie on the beach and call unhurrying death?
Lord, was he waiting long? How long he fought
In France, four days or one? Who saw him fall?
Cared that he fell in sunshine, lay in rain,
Or perished in the night? And what star cared
Above his battleground in Normandy?

"Now I know why Mary of Galilee,
One morning, rose and went into the Garden.
And I know why she tarried and was sad.
Mary, it is the same with me," she said.






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