When you see millions of the mouthless dead
for choir SATBdiv
- Duration 5'
Words
by Charles Sorley
Availability
choral photocopying licence for sale from this website
up to 25 copies for GBP45.00 or USD90.00
up to 50 copies for GBP50.00 or USD100.00
up to 100 copies for GBP55.00 or USD110.00
up to 25 copies for GBP45.00 or USD90.00
up to 50 copies for GBP50.00 or USD100.00
up to 100 copies for GBP55.00 or USD110.00
Broadcasts
broadcast on BBC Radio 3, November 2006 - also via European Broadcasting Union Satellite to other radio stations
Text
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,
"Yet many a better one has died before."
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.
Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895-1915)
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,
"Yet many a better one has died before."
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.
Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895-1915)