Here, where we stood together, we three men, <br />Before the war had swept us to the East <br />Three thousand miles away, I stand again <br />And hear the bells, and breathe, and go to feast. <br />We trod the same path, to the selfsame place, <br />Yet here I stand, having beheld their graves, <br />Skyros whose shadows the great seas erase, <br />And Seddul Bahr that ever more blood craves. <br />So, since we communed here, our bones have been <br />Nearer, perhaps, than they again will be, <br />Earth and the worldwide battle lie between, <br />Death lies between, and friend-destroying sea. <br />Yet here, a year ago, we talked and stood <br />As I stnad now, with pulses beating blood. <br /> <br />I saw her like a shadow on the sky <br />In the last light, a blur upon the sea, <br />Then the gale's darkness put the shadow by, <br />But from one grave that island talked to me; <br />And, in the midnight, in the breaking storm, <br />I saw its blackness and a blinking light, <br />And thought, "So death obscures your gentle form, <br />So memory strives to make the darkness bright; <br />And, in that heap of rocks, your body lies, <br />Part of the island till the planet ends, <br />My gentle comrade, beautiful and wise, <br />Part of this crag this bitter surge offends, <br />While I, who pass, a little obscure thing, <br />War with this force, and breathe, and am its king."<br /><br />John Masefield<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-island-of-skyros/
