"To Our Beloved Dead" is a poem by the Australian poet and professor Leslie Holdsworth Allen.
A sandstone war memorial was designed by architect William Hardy Wilson for Newington College and was dedicated on 11 May 1922 by the Governor-General of Australia, Henry Forster, 1st Baron Forster.[1] Allen wrote the poem in memory of the occasion. The memorial comprises a semi-circular wall and seat, with pillars surmounted by white stone urns at either end and a column with a sundial in the centre.[2]
The inscriptions on the wall and sundial read:[3]
Approach this shrine of stone beneath the treesand drink its whiteness, while the shadows moveLike the slow march of Time; mellowed and sweet.Let the fine memoriesHeld in this quiet guard of love,Thy soul with limpid mirroring repeat. Above its chasteness the faint opal skyOf dawn, the turquoise of the burning day,The ruby vapours of the sunset, floatLike window-stains to lieTempering the sombre-shadowed bayThat bids thy prayer, sequestered and devote.
The dusty turmoil and the sultry blastIntrude not here. this canopy of leavesThe gloom enriches where the dial-bladeSlays silently the Past.Yet think not that thy spirit grievesOn evanescence eaten by a shade.
Time is no banquet for the barren jawsOf death; it is received into a wombMade quick with the eternal hour of God.Be then thy reverent pauseNo resignation faint. The TombMasks deathlessness with the delusive sod.
Turn from this spot inviolate to the fieldsGreen with winter rain. The football leapsFrom hand to hand in the swift passing-rush.Vainly the last man shieldsThe touch-line, and an athlete sweepsBehind the goal, lit with exhilarant flush.
That throng is immortality, the fireDeath quenched not in their fathers. Had they knownTheir anguished fall was but a nothingness,Would they, with blenched desirePaling, have cried, “What can atone?”Those shouts thy answer. Do they live the less?
Twofold the hero’s shrine, bequeathed life,And life celestial. These twin urns shall holdNot remnant ashes but their twofold birth;For sacrificial strifeIs generation. So doth mouldThe Potter’s hand the slow, unplastic earth.
The shouting swells. The game is at its height.While here the imperceptible shadow glidesSwift pulses urge the monuments into rout.Well that their prodigal flightThe dragging hours’ probation hidesWhen life is summons and the soul is doubt!
Yet tested man, kindling at every call.Burns into faith, gladder with sterner proof,And if the clarion call the flesh to bleed,More glad, more glad than all.Such were these fallen, not aloof,But given full-hearted o the bitter need.
Live life, and live it swift in every vein,Ye players! Let the vivid monuments fly!Your hurrying life hoards the enduring moodThat steads the grown man’s painWhen, like these dead, prepared to die,Ye hear the call with manhood’s even blood.
That hour will come. The scattered clouds of warGrowl on the swart horizon. Lust and HateLike half-tamed lions crouch upon the spring.Ah, when the need is soreYe will not fail the fire innateYour fathers gave you from their triumphing!
Silent the shrine of stone beneath the trees!The players’ shouting with the ended flightDies at the edges of this glimmering bower.The dial fades, and ceaseThe eking minutes ’neath the night.Heaven’s fountain breaks and rains the eternal hour.