 | The Poems of Sir William Watson |  |
31
THE SLAIN
Partners in silence, mates in noteless doom,Peers in oblivion's commonalty merged;
Unto like deeds by differing mandates urged,
And equalled in the unrespective tomb;
Leal or perfidious, cruel or ruthful, whom
Precipitate fate hath of your frailties purged;
Whom duly the impartial winds have dirged,
In autumn or the glorying vernal bloom:
Already is your strife become as nought;
Idle the bullet's flight, the bayonet's thrust,
The senseless cannon's dull, unmeaning word;
Idle your feud; and all for which ye fought
To this arbitrament of loam referred,
And cold adjudication of the dust.
1903
| The Poems of Sir William Watson | |