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Thursday, September 17, 2015

CHARLES WOLFE 1791-1823


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THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE AFTER CORUNNA

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,  
  As his corse to the rampart we hurried;  
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot  
  O'er the grave where our hero we buried.  

We buried him darkly at dead of night,        
  The sods with our bayonets turning,  
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light  
  And the lanthorn dimly burning.  

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
  Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him;  
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest  
  With his martial cloak around him.  

Few and short were the prayers we said,  
  And we spoke not a word of sorrow;  
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
  And we bitterly thought of the morrow.  

We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed  
  And smooth'd down his lonely pillow,  
That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head,  
  And we far away on the billow!   

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,  
  And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him -  
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on  
  In the grave where a Briton has laid him.  

But half of our heavy task was done   
  When the clock struck the hour for retiring;  
And we heard the distant and random gun  
  That the foe was sullenly firing.  

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,  
  From the field of his fame fresh and gory;   
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,  
  But we left him alone with his glory.  

This Irish poet is best remembered for this particular poem. Written in 1816 and much collected in 19th and 20th century anthologies, the poem first appeared anonymously in the Newry Telegraph on 19th April 1817, and was re-printed in many other periodicals. It was forgotten until after his death when Lord Byron drew the attention of the public to it. 

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