Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And Nobleness walks in our ways again;
And we have come into our heritage.
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Comments
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I feel that Brooke is trying to come to terms with the actual sacrifice made by so many thousands of men.
Ironic that he should become of them himself.
Von -
This poem seems to me to be extolling the glory of death in battle. Implying that death makes all men into heroes and princes. A strange idea from a soldier who protested against the barbarity of war.
Jim S
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