Deep, deep the sleep of heroes laid to rest
In hollows watered by their youthful blood.

Deep, deep the silence on the smoking plain
Where horse and rider will not rise again.

Deep, deep the ploughshare’s furrow like a wound
Across their common grave in fallow ground.

Deep, deep the yellow of the ripened corn
Which falls before the reaper’s scythe at dawn.

Deep, deep the snow whose icy funeral pall
Bedecks the dead and slowly covers all.

1987-1988