Day 22: Tempo
This is the poem I’ve chosen for this prompt:
The Burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna by Charles Wolfe
Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corpse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we buried.
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We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeams misty light
And the lantern dimly burning.
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No useless coffin enclosed his breast
Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.
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Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed at the face that was dead
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
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We thought, as we hollow’d his narrow bed
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
That the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head,
And we far away from the billow!
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Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone,
And oe’r his cold ashes upbraid him
But little he’ll reck if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
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But half of our heavy task was done,
When the clock struck the hour for retiring,
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.
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Slowly and sadly we laid him down
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone,
But we left him alone with his glory.
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We learned this poem in Presentation Convent School, whenever we recited this poem the atmosphere was so solemn, we felt as if we were going through the burial of Sir John Moore in person.
The tempo of this poem is unbelievable.
Sabethville 