| William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920. 1920. |
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| The Young Dead |
| | | Edith Wharton (1862–1937) |
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| AH, how I pity the young dead who gave | |
| All that they were, and might become, that we | |
| With tired eyes should watch this perfect sea | |
| Re-weave its patterning of silver wave | |
| Round scented cliffs of arbutus and bay. | 5 |
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| No more shall any rose along the way, | |
| The myrtled way that wanders to the shore, | |
| Nor jonquil-twinkling meadow any more, | |
| Nor the warm lavender that takes the spray, | |
| Smell only of sea-salt and the sun, | 10 |
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| But, through recurring seasons, every one | |
| Shall speak to us with lips the darkness closes, | |
| Shall look at us with eyes that missed the roses, | |
| Clutch us with hands whose work was just begun, | |
| Laid idle now beneath the earth we tread— | 15 |
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| And always we shall walk with the young dead.— | |
| Ah, how I pity the young dead, whose eyes | |
| Strain through the sod to see these perfect skies, | |
| Who feel the new wheat springing in their stead, | |
And the lark singing for them overhead!
The Yale Review | 20 |
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