Poem for Memorial Day, A Knight's Tale, Lewis Ginter Flowers

Dirge for Two Veterans
By Walt Whitman

   The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finished Sabbath,
On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking,
   Down a new-made double grave.

   Lo, the moon ascending,
Up from the east the silvery round moon,
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,
   Immense and silent moon.

   I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-keyed bugles,
All the channels of the city streets they’re flooding,
   As with voices and with tears.

   I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring,
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
   Strikes me through and through.

   For the son is brought with the father,
(In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
Two veterans son and father dropped together,
   And the double grave awaits them.)

   Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive,
And the daylight o’er the pavement quite has faded,
   And the strong dead-march enwraps me.

   In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumined,
(‘Tis some mother’s large transparent face,
   In heaven brighter growing.)

   O strong dead-march you please me!
O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial!
   What I have I also give you.

   The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
   My heart gives you love.

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We spent most of Sunday in Hanover with Paul's parents, having brought up traditional Memorial Day picnic food (meat and veggie hot dogs, potato and macaroni salad, fruit, blueberry pie). After eating, we Skyped or telephoned a bunch of relatives. Our niece Maddy, Paul's middle brother's daughter, is coming to stay with us in July, so we talked to her, and briefly to her dad and my parents and older son.

Son's girlfriend came over when we got home, arriving while we were watching the Memorial Day Concert on PBS. Afterward, having discovered that she had never seen A Knight's Tale, we watched that and it remains pretty thoroughly a delight even if seeing Heath Ledger will always make me a little bit sad. Here are some photos from Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens last year that I'm only just getting around to posting: