With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is a music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncountered:
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables at home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end they remain.

Lift every voice and sing,
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast’ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might,
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

   Grow old along with me!
   The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
   Our times are in His hand
   Who saith, 'A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be
       afraid!'

   Not that, amassing flowers,
   Youth sighed, 'Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall?'
   Not that, admiring stars,
   It yearned, 'Nor Jove, nor Mars;
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends
       them all!'

   Not for such hopes and fears
   Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
   Rather I prize the doubt
   Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

   Poor vaunt of life indeed,
   Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast;
   Such feasting ended, then
   As sure an end to men;
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the
       maw-crammed beast?

   Rejoice we are allied
   To That which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
   A spark disturbs our clod;
   Nearer we hold of God
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

   Then, welcome each rebuff
   That turns earth's smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
   Be our joys three-parts pain!
   Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge
       the throe!

   For thence,—a paradox
   Which comforts while it mocks,—
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
   What I aspired to be,
   And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink
    i' the scale.

   What is he but a brute
   Whose flesh has soul to suit,
Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?
   To man, propose this test—
   Thy body at its best,
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

   Yet gifts should prove their use:
   I own the Past profuse
Of power each side, perfection every turn:
   Eyes, ears took in their dole,
   Brain treasured up the whole;
Should not the heart beat once 'How good to
       live and learn'?

   Not once beat 'Praise be thine!
   I see the whole design,
I, who saw power, see now love perfect too:
   Perfect I call thy plan:
   Thanks that I was a man!
Maker, remake, complete,—I trust what Thou
       shalt do!'

   For pleasant is this flesh;
   Our soul, in its rose-mesh
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:
   Would we some prize might hold
   To match those manifold
Possessions of the brute,—gain most, as we did best!

   Let us not always say,
   'Spite of this flesh to-day
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!'
   As the bird wings and sings,
   Let us cry, 'All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than
       flesh helps soul!'

   Therefore I summon age
   To grant youth's heritage,
Life's struggle having so far reached its term:
   Thence shall I pass, approved
   A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a god though in the
       germ.

   And I shall thereupon
   Take rest, ere I be gone
Once more on my adventure brave and new:
   Fearless and unperplexed,
   When I wage battle next,
What weapons to select, what armour to indue.

   Youth ended, I shall try
   My gain or loss thereby;
Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:
   And I shall weigh the same,
   Give life its praise or blame:
Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

   For, note when evening shuts,
   A certain moment cuts
The deed off, calls the glory from the grey:
   A whisper from the west
   Shoots—'Add this to the rest,
   Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.'

   So, still within this life,
   Though lifted o'er its strife,
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,
   'This rage was right i' the main,
   That acquiescence vain:
The Future I may face now I have proved the
       Past.'

   For more is not reserved
   To man, with soul just nerved
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:
   Here, work enough to watch
   The Master work, and catch
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool's true play.

   As it was better, youth
   Should strive, through acts uncouth,
Toward making, than repose on aught found made:
   So, better, age, exempt
   From strife, should know, than tempt
Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death nor be afraid!

   Enough now, if the Right
   And Good and Infinite
Be named here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,
   With knowledge absolute,
   Subject to no dispute
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel
       alone.

   Be there, for once and all,
   Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!
   Was I, the world arraigned,
   Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace
       at last!

   Now, who shall arbitrate?
   Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
   Ten, who in ears and eyes
   Match me: we all surmise,
They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my
       soul believe?

   Not on the vulgar mass
   Called 'work', must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
   O'er which, from level stand,
   The low world laid its hand,
Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

   But all, the world's coarse thumb
   And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account;
   All instinct immature,
   All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled
   the man's amount:

   Thoughts hardly to be packed
   Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
   All I could never be,
   All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher
       shaped.

   Ay, note that Potter's wheel,
   That metaphor! and feel
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—
   Thou, to whom fools propound,
   When the wine makes its round,
'Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize
       to-day!'

   Fool! All that is, at all,
   Lasts ever, past recall;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
   What entered into thee,
   That was, is, and shall be:
Time's wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay
       endure.

   He fixed thee mid this dance
   Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou, forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
   Machinery just meant
   To give thy souls its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

   What though the earlier grooves
   Which ran the laughing loves
Around thy base, no longer pause and press?
   What though about thy rim,
   Skull-things in order grim
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

   Look not thou down but up!
   To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp's flash, and trumpet's peal,
   The new wine's foaming flow,
   The Master's lips a-glow!
Thou, heaven's consummate cup, what need'st
   thou with earth's wheel?

   But I need, now as then,
   Thee, God, who mouldest men;
And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
   Did I—to the wheel of life
   With shapes and colours rife,
Bound dizzily,—mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst:

   So, take and use Thy work,
   Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the  
       aim!
   My times be in Thy hand!
   Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete
        the same!

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

Gettin' together to smile an' rejoice, 
An' eatin' an' laughin' with folks of your choice; 
An' kissin' the girls an' declarin' that they 
Are growin' more beautiful day after day; 
Chattin' an' braggin' a bit with the men, 
Buildin' the old family circle again; 
Livin' the wholesome an' old-fashioned cheer, 
Just for awhile at the end of the year. 


Greetings fly fast as we crowd through the door 
And under the old roof we gather once more 
Just as we did when the youngsters were small; 
Mother's a little bit grayer, that's all. 
Father's a little bit older, but still 
Ready to romp an' to laugh with a will. 
Here we are back at the table again 
Tellin' our stories as women an' men. 


Bowed are our heads for a moment in prayer; 
Oh, but we're grateful an' glad to be there. 
Home from the east land an' home from the west, 
Home with the folks that are dearest an' best. 
Out of the sham of the cities afar 
We've come for a time to be just what we are. 
Here we can talk of ourselves an' be frank, 
Forgettin' position an' station an' rank. 


Give me the end of the year an' its fun 
When most of the plannin' an' toilin' is done; 
Bring all the wanderers home to the nest, 
Let me sit down with the ones I love best, 
Hear the old voices still ringin' with song, 
See the old faces unblemished by wrong, 
See the old table with all of its chairs 
An' I'll put soul in my Thanksgivin' prayers.

I was twenty-six the first time I held
a human heart in my hand.

It was sixty-four and heavier than I expected,
its chambers slack;
and I was stupidly surprised
at how cold it was.

It was the middle of the third week
before I could look at her face,
before I could spend more than an hour
learning the secrets of cirrhosis,
the dark truth of diabetes, the black lungs
of the Marlboro woman, the exquisite 
painful shape of kidney stones,
without eating an entire box of Altoids
to smother the smell of formaldehyde.

After seeing her face, I could not help
but wonder if she had a favorite color;
if she hated beets,
or loved country music before her hearing 
faded, or learned to read
before cataracts placed her in perpetual twilight.
I wondered if her mother had once been happy
when she'd come home from school
or if she'd ever had a valentine from a secret admirer.

In the weeks that followed, I would
drive the highways, scanning billboards.
I would see her face, her eyes
squinting away the cigarette smoke,
or she would turn up at the bus stop
pushing a grocery cart of empty
beer cans and soda bottles. I wondered
if that was how she'd paid for all those smokes
or if the scars of repeated infections in her womb
spoke to a more universal currency.

Did she die, I wondered, in a cardboard box
under the Burnside Bridge, nursing a bottle
of strawberry wine, telling herself
she felt a little warmer now, 
or in the Good Faith Shelter, 
her few belongings safe under the sheet 
held to her faltering heart?
Or in the emergency room, lying
on a wheeled gurney, the pitiless
lights above, the gauzy curtains around?

Did she ever wonder what it all was for?

I wish I could have told her in those days
what I've now come to know: that
it was for this--the baring
of her body on the stainless steel table--
that I might come to know its secrets
and, knowing them, might listen
to the machine-shop hum of aortic stenosis
in an old woman's chest, smile a little to myself
and, in gratitude to her who taught me,

put away my stethoscope, turn to my patient
and say Let's talk about your heart.