Sunday WW1 Remembered...

 I have been commemorating, in my own small way, the events that happened over one hundred years ago during the dark days of the First World War.

Revision

by 

Eileen Newton

In those two silent moments, when we stand

To let the surging tide of memory fill

The mind’s deep caverns with its mingled flood

Of joys and griefs, I shall not think again,

As I was wont, of the untimely slain,

Of poppies dipped and dyed in human blood,

Of the rude cross upon the ravaged hill,

And all the strife which scarred that lovely land.

My thoughts shall seek, instead, a hallowed place –

The little, leafy wood where you and I

Spent the last hour together, while the breeze

Lulled every nodding daffodil to rest;

And from the flaming ramparts of the west

Shone bars of gold between black stems of trees,

Till dusk crept softly down the April sky,

And Hesperus trembled in the sapphire space.

Remembering this, in my heart, at length set free

From gyves of hate, its bitter passion shed,

May hear once more the low, caressing call

That so entranced it, seven sad years ago.

Then, in those poignant moments, I shall know

That pain and parting matter not at all,

Because your soul, long-risen from the dead,

Is crowned by love’s immortal constancy.

There is virtually no information available about Eileen Newton, or her poem Revision but the emotion expressed, in this poem of remembrance, published in 1927, is starkly beautiful.

~***~