Bright summers fade, and all bright faces too. It seems but yesterday beside the lake You stretched your brown length in the sun to bake, Or drove against the waves in your canoe. That summer Shakespeare lived again in you. You cried with him at Harfleur, Henry's speech, "Once more, dear friends, once more into the breach!" Each day you went as Shakespeare's heroes do. So when the bright world darkened with a war You, the adventurer of dreams, aroused As one who recognized his hour, and sped Into the danger's very heart and core. And now, farewell! They tell me you are housed Among the deathless, whom they call the dead. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A DECANTER OF MADEIRA, AGED 86, TO GEORGE BANCROFT, AGED 86 by SILAS WEIR MITCHELL BLACK BUTTE by PAUL SOUTHWORTH BLISS WINTER: EAST ANGLIA by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE WHITE EAGLE by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE |