To Our Beloved Dead



"To Our Beloved Dead" is a poem by the Australian poet Professor Leslie Holdsworth Allen.

Inspiration
A sandstone war memorial was designed by architect William Hardy Wilson for Newington College and was dedicated on 11 May 1922 by the Governor-General of Australia, Henry Forster, 1st Baron Forster. Allen wrote the poem in memory of the occasion. The memorial comprises a semi-circular wall and seat, with pillars surmounted by white stone urns at either end and a column with a sundial in the centre.

The inscriptions on the wall and sundial read:

Text of poem
Approach this shrine of stone beneath the trees and drink its whiteness, while the shadows move Like the slow march of Time; mellowed and sweet. Let the fine memories Held in this quiet guard of love, Thy soul with limpid mirroring repeat.

Above its chasteness the faint opal sky Of dawn, the turquoise of the burning day, The ruby vapours of the sunset, float Like window-stains to lie Tempering the sombre-shadowed bay That bids thy prayer, sequestered and devote.

The dusty turmoil and the sultry blast Intrude not here. this canopy of leaves The gloom enriches where the dial-blade Slays silently the Past. Yet think not that thy spirit grieves On evanescence eaten by a shade.

Time is no banquet for the barren jaws Of death; it is received into a womb Made quick with the eternal hour of God. Be then thy reverent pause No resignation faint. The Tomb Masks deathlessness with the delusive sod.

Turn from this spot inviolate to the fields Green with winter rain. The football leaps From hand to hand in the swift passing-rush. Vainly the last man shields The touch-line, and an athlete sweeps Behind the goal, lit with exhilarant flush.

That throng is immortality, the fire Death quenched not in their fathers. Had they known Their anguished fall was but a nothingness, Would they, with blenched desire Paling, have cried, “What can atone?” Those shouts thy answer. Do they live the less?

Twofold the hero’s shrine, bequeathed life, And life celestial. These twin urns shall hold Not remnant ashes but their twofold birth; For sacrificial strife Is generation. So doth mould The Potter’s hand the slow, unplastic earth.

The shouting swells. The game is at its height. While here the imperceptible shadow glides Swift pulses urge the monuments into rout. Well that their prodigal flight The dragging hours’ probation hides When life is summons and the soul is doubt!

Yet tested man, kindling at every call. Burns into faith, gladder with sterner proof, And if the clarion call the flesh to bleed, More glad, more glad than all. Such were these fallen, not aloof, But given full-hearted o the bitter need.

Live life, and live it swift in every vein, Ye players! Let the vivid monuments fly! Your hurrying life hoards the enduring mood That steads the grown man’s pain When, like these dead, prepared to die, Ye hear the call with manhood’s even blood.

That hour will come. The scattered clouds of war Growl on the swart horizon. Lust and Hate Like half-tamed lions crouch upon the spring. Ah, when the need is sore Ye will not fail the fire innate Your fathers gave you from their triumphing!

Silent the shrine of stone beneath the trees! The players’ shouting with the ended flight Dies at the edges of this glimmering bower. The dial fades, and cease The eking minutes ’neath the night. Heaven’s fountain breaks and rains the eternal hour. 