Death & Dying
The Oldest Drama
From In Flanders Fields and Other Poems (1919)
Immortal story that no mother's heart
Ev'n yet can read, nor feel the biting pain
That rent her soul! Immortal not by art
Which makes a long past sorrow sting again
Like grief of yesterday: but since it said
In simplest word the truth which all may see,
Where any mother sobs above her dead
And plays anew the silent tragedy.
Codex Note
On the Old Testament story of the child who cried 'My head, my head' in the harvest field and died on his mother's knee. It calls it an immortal tale because it says in the simplest words what any grieving mother plays again.
Cite this poem
MLA
McCrae, John. “The Oldest Drama.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/mccrae/25/.
Chicago
McCrae, John. “The Oldest Drama.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/mccrae/25/.
Read this poem with the Codex →