Four stalwart Indians keep rhythmic step. On their strong shoulders they bear a frail casket. Four tall men go before them. They, too, keep rhythmic step. They bear floral offerings, wreaths and sheaves of bloom. The men mourners follow. They keep rhythmic step While the tear-bottles of their hearts fill silently, Ever so silently. The women! Where are they? She who bore the child? They, too, who loved it? Do they sit within a thatch-roofed, adobe hut? Do they hear the echo of the hammer, Metal tapping metal, metal tapping metal, Metal tapping metal, As when the braves fashioned the casket, As when each tap mangled the mother's heart? Rhythmically the procession moves on to a distant hillside beyond Victoria. There, leaves sing lullabies While birds trill melodies above the deep silence of the sleepers. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...OLNEY HYMNS: 49. JOY AND PEACE IN BELIEVING by WILLIAM COWPER MY GARDEN by RALPH WALDO EMERSON WINTER'S EVENING HYMN TO MY FIRE by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL WINTER RAIN by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI NERVES by ARTHUR WILLIAM SYMONS FAREWELL, UNKIST by THOMAS WYATT INVITES HIS NYMPH TO HIS COTTAGE by PHILIP AYRES FRAGMENTS INTENDED FOR DEATH'S JEST-BOOK: SORROW by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |