Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE YOUNG DEAD, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: These who were born so beautifully
Last Line: To find the unending beauty of the sky.
Alternate Author Name(s): Burt, Struthers
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


These who were born so beautifully
Of straight-limbed men and white-browed, candid wives,
Now have walked out beyond where we can see;
Are full-grown men, with spent and splendid lives:
And these that only a little while ago
Without our help would stumble in steep places,
Need never our hands, stride proudly on, and so
Come to a dawn of great, unknown spaces.

O lithe young limbs and radiant, grave young eyes,
Now have you taught us beauty cannot fade;
This summer finds a rounding of the skies,
And all the summer night is overlaid
With calm, a strength, a loveliness, a lending
Of grace that will not go, that has no ending.

. . . . . . . .

And I had planned a future filled with bright
Upstanding days that found and held the sun
Even where shadows are. When these were done,
Sleep, with a heart made curiously light . . .
I dreamed so much . . . as all men dream at night . . .
Of tasks, and the fine heat of them, the cool
That comes by dusk like color on a pool:
Now this is over and new things begun.

Now this is over, and my dreams are caught
Up in a great cloud terrible and unsought,
And all my hours, so straightly marked before,
Are blown and broken by the wind of war;
I only know there is no time for reaping;
The trumpets care so little for my sleeping.

. . . . . . . .

After great labor comes great calm, great rest,
The wonder of contentment, and surcease,
And once again we feel the wind and see
A flower stirred, or hear, amidst the peace,
The inarticulate music of the bee:
Taste sweetness where sweat was, and, what is best,
Behind the veil that hangs across our sight,
One moment know the changelessness of light.

And so I have no pity for the dead,
They have gone out, gone out with flame and song,
A sudden shining glory round them spread;
Their drooping hands raised up again and strong;
Only I sorrow that a man must die
To find the unending beauty of the sky.





Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!


Other Poems of Interest...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net