A Crusader

by Robert Graves (1923) — a poem card from Justes Mots

A crusader's brief epitaph where Death, personified as eager to serve, intercepts the speaker's beloved and claims her in what appears to be a military or romantic conflict. The poem captures loss in warfare or courtship, with Death portrayed as a rival stealing the beloved into 'quietness.' It suits those mourning someone lost during wartime or seeking language for tragic separation.

Death, kindly eager to pretend
Himself my servant in the land of spears,
Humble allegiance at the end
Broke where the homeward track your castle nears,
Let his white steed before my red steed press
And rapt you from me into quietness.…

Themes: sympathy · grief · new-chapter