Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Poems of Sentiment: VI. Labor and Rest

The Fallen

John Vance Cheney (1848–1922)

TOLL the slow bell,

Toll the low bell,

Toll, toll,

Make dole

For them that wrought so well.

Come, come,

With muffled drum

And wailing lorn

Of dolorous horn;

The solemn measure slow

Toll and beat and blow;

Put out all glories that adorn

The sweet, unheeding morn.

Come, come;

To the muffled drum

And the sad horns

Bring flowers for them that took the thorns.

Knell, knell;

Let the slow bell

Be struck and the troubled drum;

Come, come,

The solemn measure slow

Toll and beat and blow;

Rebuke this bright, unpitying light.

The solemn measure slow

Toll and beat and blow

For them our beauty and our might

Gone on the unreturning way,

For them that took the night

That we might have the day.

Hark! voices, joyous voices break

From the green martyr-mounds: “Wake, wake!

The Lord our God, once more He saith,

This hand made all—it made not death.

Let the blithe bells ring

And the May air sing;

Strike the quick drum,

Smite sorrow dumb;

Blow the glad horn,

This glad May morn;

Lift the valiant measures high

Of the proud earth and sky

For them that tent

Beyond the firmament,

And on the field of light

Still gather to the fight.

“Blow the glad horn,

This glad May morn;

Stanch, undaunted measures blow,

Gathering courage as they go,—

Valiant measures high

Carolled of earth and sky;

Set the bright, triumphal stave

For them that fought so well,

That faltered not nor fell;

For them and all whereso yon colors wave,

Unto the four winds given

And the proud earth and heaven.

There believe and battle they

Whose face is toward the day,

The ever-living light,

Where is no night,

Where is no death nor shadow of the grave.”