Death of a Soldier

 

Silence! See those people

Gathered to mourn on the grass

And hear the somber priest breathe water

And the sole bugler play Taps?

They gather to inter a soldier

Who never in his tenure

Made orphans or ashes

Who dealt with a fair hand

Who walked with his God

Who never judged the self-righteous

Who sat in their castles and

Set their dials on fire

With the words of the Lord

Condemning desire

Who held his head high

As he heard the heckled cries

Oh his assumed infamy:

Hell and the blood plague

Whose flag-draped coffin

Was sealed in the monument

The white house of the dead

Whose epitaph read

“Or Not”

Reviews

[Nancy Lee Shrader]

Very well done. Too many have fallen and their deaths should be remembered and mourned. A great tribute to all the fallen soldiers.

[Archipelago]

line 17 should read "Of his assumed infamy:"