Here is another overlooked gem from John Masefield that I discovered not long ago. I can’t find an exact date for this poem. The anthology from which I took it was published in 1928, so it was written before then, at least.
I think the date is important because it could well have been written either during the first world war or in its long shadow. I wonder whether Masefield was inviting his original readers to think of the casualties of the western front. Can anyone out there shed any light on this for me?
The theme of the poem also bears some resemblance to the Scottish language ballad, The Twa Corbies, by our old friend anonymous. I can’t help feeling too, that it might have inspired the lyrics of the 1967 song Conquistador by Procul Harum.
Perhaps it’s not the most original theme. Be that as it may, Masefield made a haunting, musical and memorable poem out of it.
The Dead Knight by John Masefield
The cleanly rush of the mountain air,
And the mumbling, grumbling humble-bees,
Are the only things that wander there,
The pitiful bones are laid at ease,
The grass has grown in his tangled hair,
And a rambling bramble binds his knees.
To shrieve his soul from the pangs of hell,
The only requiem-bells that rang
Were the hare-bell and the heather-bell.
Hushed he is with the holy spell
In the gentle hymn the wind sang,
And he lies quiet, and sleeps well.
He is bleached and blanched with the summer sun;
The misty rain and cold dew
Have altered him from the kingly one
(That his lady loved, and his men knew)
And dwindled him to a skeleton.
The vetches have twined about his bones,
The straggling ivy twists and creeps
In his eye-sockets; the nettle keeps
Vigil about him while he sleeps.
Over his body the wind moans
With a dreary tune throughout the day,
In a chorus wistful, eerie, thin
As the gull’s cry — as the cry in the bay
The mournful word the seas say
When tides are wandering out or in.
The Good Reader 