Astronomy
by Alfred Edward Housman — a poem card from Justes Mots
An elegy for a soldier who died far from home in Africa, stripped of recognition and buried in obscurity. The poem critiques the meaninglessness of military honors against death's erasure. Suitable for military memorials or expressing sorrow over a soldier's death.
The Wain upon the northern steep
Descends and lifts away.
Oh I will sit me down and weep
For bones in Africa.
For pay and medals, name and rank,
Things that he has not found,
He hove the Cross to heaven and sank…