When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you'll remember. For you need not so. Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It is not curses heaped on each gashed head? Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow. Nor honour. It is easy to be dead. Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto, "Yet many a better one has died before." Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you Perceive one face that you loved heretofore, It is a spook. None wears the face you knew. Great death has made all his for evermore. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO W.E.B. DUBOIS - SCHOLAR by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON HOW TO KNOW LOVE FROM DECEIT by WILLIAM BLAKE THE OLD ARM-CHAIR by ELIZA COOK BRONX, 1818 by JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE VIGNETTES OVERSEAS: 5. NIGHT SONG AT AMALFI by SARA TEASDALE |