In Memory of Dave

I do not seek with barren words To give you comfort in your grief;

Can words restore the flower that’s gone, Make green the fallen leaf? But while your mother’s heart is sore, Only a little space I crave, On which to lay a poet wreath In memory of Dave. Ten years ago he came to me, In those old dead political days; But o’er my books our talk outbroke

And rambled many pleasant ways.

He came to learn - ‘twas I was taught;

For as we turned o’er Ruskin’s page,

Wherein was shown the sculptured work Of masons of the Middle Age. Dave looked on with delighted eyes,

And marvelled at the brain and bone,

The skill and strength that had combined To carve so perfectly the stone. “Man thae were wondrous times,” he said,

“Baith brain and muscle balanced fine, Wi’ heart to feel and eye to guide The steady chisel’s cunning line. “We canna dae the like o’ that; Man see that stane, it’s like a floo’er!

We couldna touch’t; I wonder hoo

Thae common masons got the poo’er!”

Ay, wondrous times, but matched with these How infinitely far removed, How less in all great workmanship

Your Dave in his own flesh has proved. Those masons of the olden time Built loyally and builded true, And we who see their work today Will never fail to pay their due. Yet they but wrought in senseless stone,

And joyed in their perfected plan,

While Dave laid down his flesh and blood

To build a house of peace for man.

They saw spires of flowered stone Soar up as if to pierce the sky; But Dave could only dream he saw

The thing for which he went to die. Ah, many are the lads that lie Dead for our sake across the sea,

And bitter is the price they’ve paid to keep our children free. And many are the weary hearts Will look in vain across the foam, As if they yet might see the lads That never will come home. They will not see the cruel death, But only faces ever young, The eyes that smiled to greet their folk, The lips that laughed and sung. And France henceforth is sacred ground, One vast and holy battle-grave, Where they who lived and died for us

Sleep side by side with Dave.