In Memory Of. In Fondest Recollection Of. 
In Loving Memory Of. In Fond 
Remembrance. Died in October. Died at Sea. 
Who died at sea? The name of the seaport 
Escapes her, gone, blown with the eastwind, over 
The tombs and yews, into the apple orchard, 
Over the road, where gleams a wagon-top, 
And gone. The eastwind gallops up from sea 
Bringing salt and gulls. The marsh smell, too, 
Strong in September; mud and reeds, the reeds 
Rattling like bones. 


She shifts the grass-clipper 
From right to left hand, clips and clips the grass. 
The broken column, carefully broken, on which 
The blackbird hen is laughing?in fondest memory. 
Burden! Who was this Burden, to be remembered? 
Or Potter? The Potter rejected by the Pot. 
`Here lies Josephus Burden, who departed 
This life the fourth of August, nineteen hundred. 
?And He Said Come.? ? Josephus Burden, forty, 
Gross, ribald, with strong hands on which grew hair, 
And red ears kinked with hair, and northblue eyes, 
Held in one hand a hammer, in the other 
A nail. He drove the nail . . . This was enough? 
Or?also?did he love? 


She changes back 
The clipper. The blades are dull. The grass is wet 
And gums the blades. In Loving Recollection. 
Four chains, heavy, hang round the vault. What chance 
For skeletons? The dead men rise at night, 
Rattle the links. `Too heavy! can?t be budged . . . 
Try once again?together?NOW! . . . no use.? 
They sit in moonless shadow, gently talking. 
`Old Jones it must have been, who made those chains. 
I?d like to see him lift them now!? . . . The owl 
That hunts in Wickham Wood comes over, mewing. 
`An owl,? says one. `Most likely,? says another. 
They turn grey heads. 


The seawind brings a breaking 
Bell sound among the yews and tombstones, ringing 
The twisted whorls of bronze on sunlit stones. 
Sacred . . . memory . . . affectionate . . . O God 
What travesty is this?the blackbird soils 
The broken column; the worm at work in the skull 
Feasts on medulla; and the lewd thrush cracks 
A snailshell on the vault. He died on shipboard? 
Sea-burial, then, were better? 


On her knees 
She clips and clips, kneeling against the sod, 
Holding the world between her two knees, pondering 
Downward, as if her thought, like men or apples, 
Fell ripely into earth. Seablue, her eyes 
Turn to the sea. Sea-gulls are scavengers, 
Cruel of face, but lovely. By the dykes 
The reeds rattle, leaping in eastwind, rattling 
Like bones. In Fond Remembrance Of. O God, 
That life is what it is, and does not change. 
You there in earth, and I above you kneeling. 
You dead, and I alive. 


She prods a plantain 
Of too ambitious root. That largest yew-tree, 
Clutching the hill? 


She rises from stiff knees, 
Stiffly, and treads the pebble path, that leads 
Downward, to sea and town. The marsh smell comes 
Healthy and salt, and fills her nostrils. Reeds 
Dance in the eastwind, rattling; warblers dart 
Flashing, from swaying reed to reed, and sing.