The Dying Knight and the Fauns

The Dying Knight and the Fauns

by Robert Graves (pub 1910-1914)

 

The Dying Knight and the Fauns

Through the dreams of yesternight

My blood brother great in fight

I saw lying, slowly dying

Where the weary woods were sighing

With the rustle of the birches,

With the quiver of the larches…

Woodland fauns with hairy haunches

Grin in wonder through the branches,

Woodland fauns who know not fear:

Wondering they wander near,

Munching mushrooms red as coral,

Bunches, too, of rue and sorrel,

With uncouth and bestial sounds,

Knowing naught of war and wounds.

But the crimson life-blood oozes

And makes roses of the daisies,

Persian carpets of the mosses—

Softly now his spirit passes

As the bee forsakes the lily,

As the berry leaves the holly;

But the fauns still think him living,

And with bay leaves they are weaving

Crowns to deck him.

Well they may!

He was worthy of the Bay.

 

We borrowed a few lines from this poem as mourning for David even though it was written before the war began.

Here there is a tender if ignorant reverence for death from the fauns, from the old woods.

And here the red rose from The Cool Web metamorphosizes from the innocent daisy:

 

But the crimson life-blood oozes

And makes roses of the daisies,

Persian carpets of the mosses—