Battle Cry

[written_leaves]

Now here's a curiosity - I found this recently among my old school papers, having apparently written it back in 1983, my teen years, and then tucked carefully away - so carefully I forgot it. It's a bit over the top with the old-style romantic-era phrasing, a somewhat melodramatic youthful view of war, but I strangely like it. I was reading things like Tolkien, Dumas and Shakespeare at the time.

Battle Cry


General of a thousand men,
Commander of a thousand lives,
He stands at battle's end, so
gazing at the bittereed sky.

O battle, you were victorious!
In lead of every fray and
Rampant run you swung your
Bitter scythe against the others' hand.

O victory - they cried your name
They paraded and rejoiced your lot -
The widows in the shadows shamed
The heroes dead upon the grounds.

In coldness of the noonday light -
Unguarded moments, precious few
For Leaders harried and admired,
Slow sharpness, softness holding
Back the tears with profile scarred.

Bitter wounds...
To mend the ravaged heart-strings,
To soothe the crying of the soul,
Balms for a war-wearied mind,
For the aching of the memories.

Their blood, it cries from icy death
Far louder than the vic'try's call.
And in the declining of our days,
Far longer too.

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