The Winter Soldier: The Dead Poet.

    When I grow old they'll come to me and say:
    Did you then know him in that distant day?
    Did you speak with him, touch his hand, observe
    The proud eyes' fire, soft voice and light lips' curve?
    And I shall answer: This man was my friend;
    Call to my memory, add, improve, amend
    And count up all the meetings that we had
    And note his good and touch upon his bad.

    When I grow older and more garrulous,
    I shall discourse on the dead poet thus:
    I said to him ... he answered unto me...
    He dined with me one night in Trinity...
    I supped with him in King's ... Ah, pitiful
    The twisted memories of an ancient fool
    And sweet the silence of a young man dead!
    Now far in Lemnos sleeps that golden head,
    Unchanged, serene, for ever young and strong,
    Lifted above the chances that belong
    To us who live, for he shall not grow old
    And only of his youth there shall be told
    Magical stories, true and wondrous tales,
    As of a god whose virtue never fails,
    Whose limbs shall never waste, eyes never fall,
    And whose clear brain shall not be dimmed at all.

Edward Shanks

Edward Shanks was an English writer, poet, and novelist, known for his literary contributions during the early 20th century. Born on June 11, 1892, in London, Shanks attended Cambridge University where he was a member of the 'War Poets' of World War I. His works reflect the turmoil and changes of his time. Besides poetry, he wrote novels, essays, and book reviews, contributing significantly to English literature. He passed away on May 4, 1953.

Edward Shanks

Persuasion.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

A Hollow Elm

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

Bramber.

Edward Shanks, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Robert Louis Stevenson - An Elegy

High on his Patmos of the Southern Seas
Our northern dreamer sleeps,
Strange stars above him, and above his grave
Strange leaves and wings their tropic splendours wave,
While, far beneath, mile after shimmering mile,
The great Pacific, with its faery deeps,
Smiles all day long its silken secret smile.

Son of a race nomadic, finding still
Its home in regions furthest from its home,
Ranging untired the borders of the world,
And resting but to roam;
Loved of his land, and making all his boast
The birthright of the blood from which he came,
Heir to those lights that guard the Scottish coast,
And caring only for a filial fame;
Proud, if a poet, he was Scotsman most,
And bore a Scottish name.

Death, that long sought our poet, finds at last,
Dea...

Richard Le Gallienne

The Winter Soldier: The Pool.

    Out of that noise and hurry of large life
        The river flings me in an idle pool:
    The waters still go on with stir and strife
        And sunlit eddies, and the beautiful
    Tall trees lean down upon the mighty flow,
        Reflected in that movement.    Beauty there
    Waxes more beautiful, the moments grow
        Thicker and keener in that lovely air
    Above the river.    Here small sticks and straws
        Come now to harbour, gather, lie and rot,
    Out of cross-currents and the water's flaws
        In this unmoving death, where joy is not,
    Where war's a shade again, ambition rotten
    And bitter hopes and fears alike forgotten.

Edward Shanks

Memory

In silence and in darkness memory wakes
Her million sheathèd buds, and breaks
That day-long winter when the light and noise
And hard bleak breath of the outward-looking will
Made barren her tender soil, when every voice
Of her million airy birds was muffled or still.

One bud-sheath breaks:
One sudden voice awakes.

What change grew in our hearts, seeing one night
That moth-winged ship drifting across the bay,
    Her broad sail dimly white
On cloudy waters and hills as vague as they?
Some new thing touched our spirits with distant delight,
Half-seen, half-noticed, as we loitered down,
Talking in whispers, to the little town,
    Down from the narrow hill
    Talking in whispers, for the air so still
Imposed its stillness on our lips, and made

Edward Shanks

F. W. C.

Fast as the rolling seasons bring
The hour of fate to those we love,
Each pearl that leaves the broken string
Is set in Friendship's crown above.
As narrower grows the earthly chain,
The circle widens in the sky;
These are our treasures that remain,
But those are stars that beam on high.


We miss - oh, how we miss! - his face, -
With trembling accents speak his name.
Earth cannot fill his shadowed place
From all her rolls of pride and fame;
Our song has lost the silvery thread
That carolled through his jocund lips;
Our laugh is mute, our smile is fled,
And all our sunshine in eclipse.

And what and whence the wondrous charm
That kept his manhood boylike still, -
That life's hard censors could disarm
And lead them captive at his w...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

At The Saturday Club

This is our place of meeting; opposite
That towered and pillared building: look at it;
King's Chapel in the Second George's day,
Rebellion stole its regal name away, -
Stone Chapel sounded better; but at last
The poisoned name of our provincial past
Had lost its ancient venom; then once more
Stone Chapel was King's Chapel as before.
(So let rechristened North Street, when it can,
Bring back the days of Marlborough and Queen Anne!)
Next the old church your wandering eye will meet -
A granite pile that stares upon the street -
Our civic temple; slanderous tongues have said
Its shape was modelled from St. Botolph's head,
Lofty, but narrow; jealous passers-by
Say Boston always held her head too high.
Turn half-way round, and let your look survey
The white fac...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Forgotten Dead, I Salute You.

    Dawn has flashed up the startled skies,
    Night has gone out beneath the hill
    Many sweet times; before our eyes
    Dawn makes and unmakes about us still
    The magic that we call the rose.
    The gentle history of the rain
    Has been unfolded, traced and lost
    By the sharp finger-tips of frost;
    Birds in the hawthorn build again;
    The hare makes soft her secret house;
    The wind at tourney comes and goes,
    Spurring the green, unharnessed boughs;
    The moon has waxed fierce and waned dim:
    He knew the beauty of all those
    Last year, and who remembers him?

    Love sometimes walks the waters still,
    Laughter throws back her radiant head;
    Utterly beauty is not gone,
    And wonder is not wholly dead.

Muriel Stuart