The Death of the Scharnhorst, and Other Poems

by Arch Alfred McKillen

Bury him! Not where the rough, raw earth
With his fathers’ bones is filled,
Nor bury him there where the old chiefs’ blood
On the rich, rolled plain is spilled,
And bury him not where he’ll be forgot,
With the reason for which he was killed,
But, bury him. Bury him.

Bury him not in a lonely plot
In the midst of the fools who cried
Of his race and his face, and forgot every trace
Of the reason for which he died,
While the heart of the nation’s demoralization
Began to ascend as it sighed,
“Bury him. Bury him.”

Bury him well. Let the bugler tell
To the listening wind and the wood
How an Indian boy, who was somebody’s joy
And the pride of a small neighborhood,
Met his death in the yell of a Korean hell,
And, returned to his home, was accused
Of his race and his place in a nation’s disgrace,
And his burial there was refused.

Let the volley resound and the hollows be found
To re-echo the bugle and gun,
Till the echoes grow dim and we know that in him
We bury all men in this one.
For we bury the stain when we bury the slain
In these wars that are yet to be won.

Bury him, then, where such comrades shall lie
Side by side in the long marbled sleep,
As have longed long for sleeping, and there in their keeping
Assign him the grave he shall keep.
In that company of others, his spiritual brothers,
Whose tears all were salt when they’d weep.
Bury him. Bury him.

Bury him mournfully, he who was scornfully
Thought to be brought to disgrace among men.
Bury heroically here all the stoically
Suffered injustice and wrong that has been.
Bury the dead and defeated, repeated
Mistakes that have tumbled our honor again.
Bury the past with its hate and its slaughter,
And from this sweet grave make beginning. Come, then,
Bury him! Bury him!

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$2.50

THE DEATH
OF THE
SCHARNHORST
And Other Poems
by
Arch Alfred McKillen

In the powerful narrative poem which furnishes the title for this impressive first volume, Arch Alfred McKillen tells the dramatic story of the sinking of the German battleship Scharnhorst, during World War II—an important day for the Allied Forces.