‘To Our Beloved Dead’ Sir Leslie Holdsworth Allen attended Newington from 1894 to 1899, in which year he was Dux of the School. An English and classics academic in adult life, he also wrote several collections of poetry and children’s verses, along with scholarly articles and translations of German plays. Allen’s poem, ‘To Our Beloved Dead’, was published with the account of the dedication of the memorials in the August 1922 issue of The Newingtonian, and again with minor corrections in the December issue. The poet meditates on the peaceful place and addresses the boys playing football a stone’s throw away on the Johnson Oval. War Memorialby Cecil Bostock, 1922. ‘To Our Beloved Dead’ ‘To Our Beloved Dead’ Newington Memorial, 1922 Newington Memorial, 1921 Approach this shrine of stone beneath the trees Twofold the hero’s shrine, bequeathed life, And drink its whiteness, while the shadows move And life celestial. These twin urns shall hold Like the slow march of Time, mellowed and sweet. Not remnant ashes but their twofold birth; Let the fine memories For sacrificial strife Held in this quiet guard of love, Is generation. So doth mould Thy soul with limpid mirroring repeat. The Potter’s hand the slow, unplastic earth. Above its chasteness the faint opal sky The shouting swells. The game is at its height. Of dawn, the turquoise of the burning day, While here the imperceptible shadow glides The ruby vapours of the sunset, float Swift pulses urge the monuments into rout. Like window-stains to lie Well that their prodigal flight Tempering the sombre-shadowed bay The dragging hours’ probation hides That bids thy prayer, sequestered and devote. When life is summons and the soul is doubt! The dusty turmoil and the sultry blast Yet tested man, kindling at every call, Intrude not here. This canopy of leaves Burns into faith, gladder with sterner proof, The gloom enriches where the dial-blade And if the clarion call the flesh to bleed, Slays silently the Past. More glad, more glad than all. Yet think not that thy spirit grieves Such were these fallen, not aloof, On evanescence eaten by a shade. But given full-hearted to the bitter need. Time is no banquet for the barren jaws Live life, and live it swift in every vein, Of death; it is received into a womb Ye players! Let the vivid moments fly! Made quick with the eternal hour of God. Your hurrying life hoards the enduring mood Be then thy reverent pause That steads the grown man’s pain No resignation faint. The Tomb When, like these dead, prepared to die, Masks deathlessness with the delusive sod. Ye hear the call with manhood’s even blood. Turn from this spot inviolate to the fields That hour will come. The scattered clouds of war Green with the winter rain. The football leaps Growl on the swart horizon. Lust and Hate From hand to hand in the swift passing-rush. Like half-tamed lions crouch upon the spring. Vainly the last man shields Ah, when the need is sore The touch-line, and an athlete sweeps Ye will not fail the fire innate Behind the goal, lit with exhilarant flush. Your fathers gave you from their triumphing! That throng is immortality, the fire Silent the shrine of stone beneath the trees! Death quenched not in their fathers. Had they known The players’ shouting with the ended fight Their anguished fall was but a nothingness, Dies at the edges of this glimmering bower. Would they, with blenched desire The dial fades, and cease Paling, have cried, “What can atone?” The eking minutes ’neath the night. Those shouts thy answer. Do they live the less? Heaven’s fountain breaks and rains the eternal hour. Curiosity | News Autumn 2022 | Alumni, Community and Development | 47