Grim's Hall

Memorial Day:

Our newest addition at BlackFive has a poem for you. He didn't mention where he came by it; maybe he wrote it himself. A few of us do that.

I watched a widow sit and weep,
But I came to kneel where warriors sleep.
I planted a flag beside the stone
And thought of glory far long gone.
I did not sit where she was weeping,
For we each have promises worth keeping.

Aye, that is so. Any man worth his breath has a promise worth keeping.

But if you haven't, or if you have room for one more, and you have an eye for the ancient, then here is a good one:

But the young earl said: “Ill the saints,
The saints of England, guard
The land wherein we pledge them gold;
The dykes decay, the King grows old,
And surely this is hard,

“That we be never quit of them;
That when his head is hoar
He cannot say to them he smote,
And spared with a hand hard at the throat,
‘Go, and return no more.’ ”

Then Alfred smiled. And the smile of him
Was like the sun for power.
But he only pointed: bade them heed
Those peasants of the Berkshire breed,
Who plucked the old Horse of the weed
As they pluck it to this hour.

“Will ye part with the weeds for ever?
Or show daisies to the door?
Or will you bid the bold grass
Go, and return no more?

“So ceaseless and so secret
Thrive terror and theft set free;
Treason and shame shall come to pass
While one weed flowers in a morass;
And like the stillness of stiff grass
The stillness of tyranny.

“Over our white souls also
Wild heresies and high
Wave prouder than the plumes of grass,
And sadder than their sigh.

“And I go riding against the raid,
And ye know not where I am;
But ye shall know in a day or year,
When one green star of grass grows here;
Chaos has charged you, charger and spear,
Battle-axe and battering-ram.

“And though skies alter and empires melt,
This word shall still be true:
If we would have the horse of old,
Scour ye the horse anew."

The old things must always be remade. They must be rewon, defended, made new in every generation. Scour ye the horse.

Scour it anew. Other men, better than us, have done so: today remember them, and rededicate yourself to the work.