Classic Poem

I am the numberless Unknown
Who have cast the shrouds of things that seem.
My grave is a planet's cornerstone,
Holding the ashes of a dream
Whose sacrificial fire blazes from zone to zone.

I am the wastrel child whom War
Hath rendered baptism, not in birth
But death, where the unseen hosts that pour
Libation on the blood-dark earth,
Intone through my mute lips the eternal: Nevermore!

Yea, Nevermore! By that mystic name
Youth's hallow'd blood hath christened me —
Nevermore! Ye living, let it flame
The challenge of your destiny —
Nevermore! — to pride and pestilence and hate and shame!

War — Nevermore! O lives that pray
For liberation, make that will
Your watchword, till the thing ye say
Because the law your deeds fulfill;
Then I with Christ will rise in sanction from my clay.

For I am dust of a deathless spark;
Unmastered engine self-ensnared;
The bullet-molder and his mark,
Shattered by dazzling creeds I shared
With you — and your own blindness muffles me in dark.

But my dark shall have no need of the sun
Neither of the moon to shine in it,
If Christ His dawning Will be done,
And this my clay-bed shall be lit
By the stars that blanket me, if my last fight be won.

Masters of life! On your decree,
Unknown and numberless, I wait:
From war's earth-blind captivity
Untomb me! Let your love be fate
And crown my risen youth with timeless victory!