Necrological Poem by John Crowe Ransom

Necrological

Rating: 3.4


The friar had said his paternosters duly
And scourged his limbs, and afterwards would have slept;
But with much riddling his head became unruly,
He arose, from the quiet monastery he crept.

Dawn lightened the place where the battle had been won.
The people were dead -- it is easy he thought to die --
These dead remained, but the living were all gone,
Gone with the wailing trumps of victory.

The dead men wore no raiment against the air,
Bartholomew's men had spoiled them where they fell;
In defeat the heroes' bodies were whitely bare,
The field was white like meads of asphodel.

Not all were white; some gory and fabulous
Whom the sword had pierced and then the grey wolf eaten;
But the brother reasoned that heroes' flesh was thus.
Flesh fails, and the postured bones lie weather-beaten.

The lords of chivalry lay prone and shattered.
The gentle and the bodyguard of yeomen;
Bartholomew's stroke went home -- but little it mattered,
Bartholomew went to be stricken of other foemen.

Beneath the blue ogive of the firmament
Was a dead warrior, clutching whose mighty knees
Was a leman, who with her flame had warmed his tent,
For him enduring all men's pleasantries.

Close by the sable stream that purged the plain
Lay the white stallion and his rider thrown,
The great beast had spilled there his little brain,
And the little groin of the knight was spilled by a stone.

The youth possessed him then of a crooked blade
Deep in the belly of a lugubrious wight;
He fingered it well, and it was cunningly made;
But strange apparatus was if for a Carmelite.

Then he sat upon a hill and bowed his head
As under a riddle, and in deep surmise
So still that he likened himself unto those dead
Whom the kites of Heaven solicited with sweet cries.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Allemagne Roßmann 02 August 2012

Absolute necropolis established with the cemetary of words

1 0 Reply
Leslie Philibert 02 August 2014

Readers of this might like my work too. I have had work published in magazines in the US, and on a lot of internet sites...

0 1 Reply
Jeryn Bean 03 August 2013

I write poems from the heart, so they're not silly or anything like that. they are deep, And somber. If you like them or rate them, its up to you. All i ask is that you give them a chance. Please check out my poems. And let me know what you think if you want.

0 2 Reply
Babatunde Aremu 02 August 2013

Wonderful write by the sage! I like it.

0 0 Reply
Padmaja Iyengar 02 August 2013

A superbly constructed necropolis with great wordplay! Thanks for sharing.

0 0 Reply
Jack Growden 02 August 2013

PLEASE READ MY COLLECTION! ! I am a young, aspiring poet. Feel free to rate and comment on my pieces. Thanks, Jack Growden

0 2 Reply
READ THIS POEM IN OTHER LANGUAGES
Close
Error Success