Hello and welcome back to the Daily Poem, podcast from Goldberry Studios.

I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Monday, July 24, 2023.

Today's poem is by Edward John Morrison Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsony,

more colloquially known as Lord Duncany,

a member of Irish nobility,

and a celebrated writer in his day.

More on him in a moment.

The poem is called dirge of victory. As is our custom

here on the show, I will read it once, offer a brief commentary, and then close out with a second

reading poem. A dirge victory by Lord Dunsony.

Lift not thy trumpet victory to the sky, nor through battalions, nor by batteries blow,

but over hollows full of old wire go, where among dregs of war the long dead lie, with a wasted iron that the guns

passed by when they went eastward like a tide at flow. There blow thy trumpet, that the dead may

know, who waited for thy coming, victory. It is not we that have deserved thy reap they waited there

among the towering weeds the deep mud burned under the thermite's breath and winter cracked

the bones that no man heeds hundreds of nights flamed by the seasons passed, and thou last,

hath come to them, at last, at last.

Edward Plunkett, or Lord Dunson,

he was born today, July 24th, rather on this date, July 24th, in 1878, and he died in 1957.

He was a writer of poetry and drama, but it was perhaps best known for his fantasy fiction, particularly his 1924 fantasy novel, The King of Elfland's Daughter, which went on to, which was very popular in his own day and went on to inspire other fantasy fiction

writers of his generation and generations to come, notable among those who seem to have been

inspired by Dunseney's one JJR.R. Tolkien.

...