ONE SOLDIER
TO GEORGE WRIGHT
HEAP the earth upon this head.
Nature, like a wistful child,
Clings unto the clay she fed,
Shatters it—unreconciled
Moans the ashes of her dead.
Heap the earth upon this head.
Chanter of the lonely tombs,
Lift him to thy harmony—
Moulded in the million wombs
That breed the soul’s nobility!...
Such the man that perished?
Heap the earth upon this head.
Our masters brood and preach and plot,
And mourn in monuments, not tears,
The man the centuries forgot
Who builded up the mighty years!
Faded are the fights they led,
Piteous the blood they shed.
Heap the earth upon this head.
Heap, heap the earth upon this head,
Brother he was to you, to me—
Lived, lusted, joyed and wept.... They spent
Their verbal earnings, and he went
And fought for human liberty,
And died. And politics were free.
Raise, raise memorials to our Dead....
But heap the earth upon this head.
Oh! heap the earth upon this head.