PRELUDE TO 'WALKING SHADOWS' by ALFRED NOYES

Of those who fought and died
Unreckoned, undescried,
Breaking no hearts but two or three that loved them;
Of multitudes that gave
Their memories to the grave,
And the unrevealing seas of night removed them;
Of those unnumbered hosts
Who smile at all our boasts
And are not blazed on any scroll of glory;
Mere out-posts in the night,
Mere keepers of the light,
Where history stops, let shadows weave a story.

Shadows, but ah, they know
That history's pomp and show
Are shadows of a shadow, gilt and painted.
They see the accepted lie
In robes of state go by.
They see the prophet stoned, the trickster sainted.

And so my shadow turn
To truths they discern
Beyond the ordered "facts" that fame would cherish,
They walk awhile with dreams,
They follow flying gleams
And lonely lights at sea that pass and perish.

Not tragic all indeed,
Not all without remede
Of clean-edged mirth. Our Rosalie of laughter,
The Bayonet of a jest,
May pierce the devil's breast,
And give us room for grief, hereafter.

So let them weep or smile
Or kneel, or dance awhile,
Fantastic shades, by wandering fires forgotten;
Remembrancers of themes
That dawn may mock as dreams.
Then let them sleep, at dawn, with the forgotten.

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