Poem by Stephen Vincent Benet

Lonely Burial

There were not many at that lonely place, 
Where two scourged hills met in a little plain. 
The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again. 
Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race 
Unseen by any. Toward the further woods 
A dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased. 
-- We were most silent in those solitudes -- 
Then, sudden as a flame, the black-robed priest, 

The clotted earth piled roughly up about 
The hacked red oblong of the new-made thing, 
Short words in swordlike Latin -- and a rout 
Of dreams most impotent, unwearying. 
Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse, 
The terrible bareness of the soul’s last house.

1. Rain after a Vaudeville Show
2. Nightmare Number Three
3. Before an Examination
4. The City Revisited
5. The Congressmen Came out to See Bull Run

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