This is a sacred city built of marvellous earth.
Life was lived nobly here to give such beauty birth.
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Beauty was in this brain and in this eager hand:
Death is so blind and dumb Death does not understand.
Death drifts the brain with dust and soils the young limbs' glory,
Death makes justice a dream, and strength a traveller's story.
Death drives the lovely soul to wander under the sky.
Death opens unknown doors. It is most grand to die.
John Masefield.
103. 'TIS BUT A WEEK
'Tis but a week since down the glen
The trampling horses came
—Half a hundred fighting men
With all their spears aflame!
They laughed and clattered as they went,
And round about their way
The blackbirds sang with one consent
In the green leaves of May.
Never again shall I see them pass;
They'll come victorious never;
Their spears are withered all as grass,
Their laughter's laid for ever;
And where they clattered as they went,
And where their hearts were gay,
The blackbirds sing with one consent
In the green leaves of May.
Gerald Gould.
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