The
Forest of the Dead
By
James Griffyth Fairfax
There are strange trees in that pale field
Of barren soil and bitter yield:
They stand without the city walls;
Their nakedness is unconcealed.
Cross after cross, mound after mound,
And no flowers blossom but are bound,
The dying and the dead, in wreaths,
Sad crowns for kings of Underground.
The Forest of the Dead is still,
No song of birds can ever thrill
Among the sapless boughs that bear
No fruit, no flower, for good or ill.
The sun by day, the moon by night,
Give terrible or tender light,
But night or day the forest stands,
Unchanging, desolately bright.
With loving or unloving eye
Kinsman and alien pass them by:
Do the dead know, do the dead care,
Under the forest as they lie?
To each the tree above his head,
To each the sign in which is said –
‘By this thou art to overcome’:
Under this forest sleep no dead.
These, having life, gave life away:
Is God less generous than they?
The spirit passes and is free:
Dust to the dust; Death takes the clay.
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