Broken and maimed and bruised We beat on the iron gate And cry for the word refused With a cry most desolate. From the sea's edge windy and lone, From the land's heart troubled and dim, The moan of the dead joins with our moan And the cry goes up to Him. And cold on his ultimate throne His arms hang stiff by his side, And his mouth falls open and wide, Pitiful -- frozen to stone. His dead eyes stare from his face, His dead hands stiffen apart And the vultures of space Flap screeching about his heart. But while we beat at the gate And cry, with our dead, to the Dead, The great Sun, splendid, elate, Rises above our head, And heedless of that lost thing Pitiful there in space, And heedless of our doomed race, The children play on the sun-warmed sod And the laughing lovers worship God. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TWENTY-FOUR HOKKU ON A MODERN THEME by AMY LOWELL ELEGY FOR AN ENEMY by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET THE TRASH MEN by CHARLES BUKOWSKI BIRTHDAY POEM FOR THOMAS HARDY by CECIL DAY LEWIS DAT GAL O' MINE by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON |