Explore Poems: Memorial Day

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On the Civil War on the East Coast of the United States of North America 1860-64
By Alan Dugan
Because of the unaccountable spirit of the troops
oh we were marched as we were never marched before
and flanked them off from home. Stupid Meade
was after them, head on to tail, but we convinced
him, finally, to flank, flank, cut off their...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
History & Politics
Mythology & Folklore
Heroes & Patriotism
Memorial Day
Portrait from the Infantry
By Alan Dugan
He smelled bad and was red-eyed with the miseries
of being scared while sleepless when he said
this: “I want a private woman, peace and quiet,
and some green stuff in my pocket. Fuck
the rest.” Pity the underwear and socks,
long burnt, of an...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
Living
Marriage & Companionship
Parenthood
Memorial Day
The Death of a Soldier
By Wallace Stevens
Life contracts and death is expected,
As in a season of autumn.
The soldier falls.

He does not become a three-days personage,
Imposing his separation,
Calling for pomp.

Death is absolute and without memorial,
As in a season of autumn,
When the wind stops,

When the wind stops and,...
Nature
Fall
Weather
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
Living
Death
Sorrow & Grieving
Memorial Day
Grief
Melancholy & Despair
+ 4 more
Memorial Day
By Reginald Gibbons
A last formality is
running late, as a life can't,
this hot day. The final
ethereal glow of
the sun seems to come up from
underfoot in this parkland
of polysyllabic death.

These deep graves, two this time,
neatly cut into the earth,
await the arrivals,
and two adjacent heaps...
Living
Death
The Body
Memorial Day
Grief
Facing It
By Yusef Komunyakaa
My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way—the stone lets me go.
I turn that way—I'm...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
History & Politics
Living
Sorrow & Grieving
Mythology & Folklore
Heroes & Patriotism
Memorial Day
Meters
Free Verse
+ 3 more
The Soldier
By Rupert Brooke
If I should die, think only this of me:
      That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
      In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
      Gave, once, her flowers...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
History & Politics
Living
Death
Time & Brevity
Mythology & Folklore
Heroes & Patriotism
Memorial Day
Verse Forms
Sonnet
Anxiety & Insecurity
Grief
+ 6 more
For a War Memorial
By G. K. Chesterton
The hucksters haggle in the mart
The cars and carts go by;
Senates and schools go droning on;
For dead things cannot die.

A storm stooped on the place of tombs
With bolts to blast and rive;
But these be names of many men
The lightning found...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
History & Politics
Living
Death
Memorial Day
Meters
Common Measure
Anger
Grief
+ 3 more
The Dead
By Rupert Brooke
Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
There’s none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth;...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
History & Politics
Living
Death
Time & Brevity
Memorial Day
Verse Forms
Sonnet
Grief
+ 3 more
Peace
By Rupert Brooke
Now, God be thanked who has matched us with his hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping!
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
History & Politics
Living
Death
Time & Brevity
Memorial Day
Verse Forms
Sonnet
Disappointment
Grief
+ 4 more
Safety
By Rupert Brooke
Dear! of all happy in the hour, most blest
He who has found our hid security,
Assured in the dark tides of the world that rest,
And heard our word, ‘Who is so safe as we?’
We have found safety...
Love
Desire & Passion
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
History & Politics
Living
Death
Time & Brevity
Memorial Day
Verse Forms
Sonnet
Grief
+ 5 more
The Dead
By Rupert Brooke
These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music;...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
Living
Death
Time & Brevity
Memorial Day
Verse Forms
Sonnet
Grief
+ 2 more
The Cenotaph
By Charlotte Mew
Not yet will those measureless fields be green again
Where only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed;
There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain,
Though for ever over it...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
History & Politics
Living
Death
Sorrow & Grieving
Relationships
Family & Ancestors
Mythology & Folklore
Heroes & Patriotism
Horror
Memorial Day
Stanza Forms
Rhymed Stanza
Types/Modes
Elegy
+ 9 more
The End and the Beginning
By Wisława Szymborska
After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
History & Politics
Relationships
Friends & Enemies
Memorial Day
Techniques
Anaphora
Optimism
+ 2 more
Memorial Day
By Gregory Orr
1
After our march from the Hudson to the top
of Cemetery Hill, we Boy Scouts proudly endured
the sermons and hot sun while Girl Scouts
lolled among graves in the maple shade.
When members of the veterans’ honor guard
aimed their bone-white rifles skyward and...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
The Mind
Memory & Nostalgia
Mythology & Folklore
Heroes & Patriotism
Memorial Day
Grief
The City's Oldest Known Survivor of the Great War
By James Doyle
marches in uniform down the traffic stripe
at the center of the street, counts time
to the unseen web that has rearranged
the air around him, his left hand
stiff as a leather strap along his side,
the other saluting right through the decades
as if...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
Living
Growing Old
Time & Brevity
Mythology & Folklore
Heroes & Patriotism
Memorial Day
Meters
Free Verse
+ 3 more
The Performance
By James L. Dickey
The last time I saw Donald Armstrong
He was staggering oddly off into the sun,
Going down, off the Philippine Islands.
I let my shovel fall, and put that hand
Above my eyes, and moved some way to one side
That his body might pass...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
Living
Death
Relationships
Friends & Enemies
Mythology & Folklore
Heroes & Patriotism
Memorial Day
Types/Modes
Elegy
Disappointment
Grief
+ 6 more
Barbara Frietchie
By John Greenleaf Whittier
Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.

Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple- and peach-tree fruited deep,

Fair as a garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
Living
Death
Sorrow & Grieving
Mythology & Folklore
Heroes & Patriotism
Independence Day
Memorial Day
Stanza Forms
Couplet
Types/Modes
Elegy
Gratitude
Joy & Contentment
Optimism
+ 9 more
I Dreamed That in a City Dark as Paris
By Louis Simpson
I dreamed that in a city dark as Paris
I stood alone in a deserted square.
The night was trembling with a violet
Expectancy. At the far edge it moved
And rumbled; on that flickering horizon
The guns were pumping color in the sky.

There was...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
History & Politics
Living
Death
Memorial Day
Meters
Blank Verse
Shiloh: A Requiem (April, 1862)
By Herman Melville
Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
Over the field in clouded days,
The forest-field of Shiloh—
Over the field where April rain
Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain
Through the pause of night
That followed the Sunday...
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
Memorial Day
Stanza Forms
Rhymed Stanza
Grief
Carentan O Carentan
By Louis Simpson
Trees in the old days used to stand
And shape a shady lane
Where lovers wandered hand in hand
Who came from Carentan.

This was the shining green canal
Where we came two by two
Walking at combat-interval.
Such trees we never knew.

The day was early June,...
Love
Heartache & Loss
Social Commentaries
War & Conflict
Living
Death
Relationships
Mythology & Folklore
Heroes & Patriotism
Memorial Day
Verse Forms
Ballad
+ 5 more

p1The Soldier

p1The Dead

p1Peace

p1The Performance

The Soldier

The Dead

Peace

The Performance