The Morning Before The Battle
Item
Title
The Morning Before The Battle
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Description
To-day, the fight: my end is very soon,
And sealed the warrant limiting my hours:
I knew it walking yesterday at noon
Down a deserted garden full of flowers.
...Carelessly sang, pinned roses on my breast,
Reached for a cherry-bunch---and then, then, Death
Blew through the garden from the North and East
And blighted every beauty with chill breath.
I looked, and ah, my wraith before me stood,
His head all battered in by violent blows:
The fruit between my lips to clotted blood
Was transubstantiate, and the pale rose
Smelt sickly, till it seemed through a swift tear-flood
That dead men blossomed in the garden-close.
And sealed the warrant limiting my hours:
I knew it walking yesterday at noon
Down a deserted garden full of flowers.
...Carelessly sang, pinned roses on my breast,
Reached for a cherry-bunch---and then, then, Death
Blew through the garden from the North and East
And blighted every beauty with chill breath.
I looked, and ah, my wraith before me stood,
His head all battered in by violent blows:
The fruit between my lips to clotted blood
Was transubstantiate, and the pale rose
Smelt sickly, till it seemed through a swift tear-flood
That dead men blossomed in the garden-close.
Identifier
3439.txt
Creator
Graves, Robert (1895-1985)
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Date
(1995, 1997, 1999)
Date Created
1997-01-01
Temporal Coverage
1999-12-31
Type
Poem
Publisher
The First World War Poetry Digital Archive
