THE DISTANT FURY OF BATTLE
Grass resurrects to mask, to strangle
Words glossed on stone, lopped stone-angel;
But the dead maintain their ground—
That there’s no getting round—
Who in places vitally rest,
Named, anonymous; who test
Alike the endurance of yews
Laurels, moonshine, stone, all tissues;
With whom, under license and duress,
There are pacts made, if not peace.
Union with the stone-wearing dead
Claims the born leader, the prepared
Leader, the devourers and all lean men.
Some, finally, learn to begin.
Some keep to the arrangement of love
(Or similar trust) under whose auspices move
Most subjects, toward the profits of this
Combine of doves and witnesses.
Some, dug out of hot-beds, are brought bare,
Not past conceiving but past care.
1955
Source of the text - Geoffrey Hill, For the Unfallen: Poems 1952-1958. Dufour Editions, 1960, page 27.
TJB: Just a shot away. With some strong, ageless rhymes, the poet writes more about us among old graves of fallen soldiers than about their wars.
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