Soldiers of the light

Chapter 30: MARINA SINGS (Pericles, Act V, Sc. i.)

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About This Book

The collection gathers lyric and narrative poems that meditate on war, sacrifice, and memory, moving between vivid battlefield tableaux and quieter scenes of civic and domestic life. Several pieces evoke a major battle with landscape detail and soldierly courage, while others adopt ballad, elegy, and devotional forms to reflect on leadership, loss, and public mourning. Recurring themes include the tension between the desire for peace and the exigencies of duty, the sanctity of sacrifice, and the labor of remembrance. A blend of patriotic, mournful, and contemplative tones also turns toward urban hardship, maritime hauntings, and spiritual consolation.

MARINA SINGS
(Pericles, Act V, Sc. i.)

This is the song Marina sang

To forlorn Pericles:

Silver the young voice rang.

The gray beard blew about his knees,

And the hair of his bowed head, like a veil,

Fell over his cheeks and blent with it:

He knew not anything.

Above him the Tyrian fold

Of the curtain billowed, fringed with gold,

As might beseem a king.

Sunset was rose on every sail

That did along the far sea flit,

And rose on the cedarn deck

Of the ship that at anchor swayed;

And the harbor was golden-lit.

He lifted not his neck

At the coming of the maid.

She swept him with her eyes,

As though some tender wing

Just touched a bleaching wreck

In sheeted sand that lies;

Then she began to sing.