The Consumptive
Leon Gellert 1892 (Australia) – 1977
The stars, the fields, will know him never-
more;
his friends, his trees, the restless swerving sea.
‘Three days to live,’ they said – the kind gave four.
They glide about his bed silently.
‘Twas not the lead of battle nor the shell
the spitting of Maxim’s basiliskine breath –
‘Twas through the falseness of the winds he fell;
the snow’s mock-warmth – a chill. His humble
death
will ne’er be sung in elegy and rhyme,
his passage bloodless was, unstained and still.
It brought no stir; and smiling all the time
He waved his last farewell behind the Hill.
I saw him die with my half-closed eyes,
And closing them I thought of Paradise.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 35 sec read
- 22 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABCBCDEDFEGHGHIJ |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 648 |
Words | 118 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 16 |
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"The Consumptive" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/25454/the-consumptive>.
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