Explore "The Morning before the Battle" by Robert Graves on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
To-day, the fight: my end is very soon, / And sealed the warrant limiting my hours: / I knew it walking yesterday at noon / Down a deserted garden full of flowers. / . Carelessly sang, pinned roses on my breast, / Reached for a cherry-bunch -- and then, then, Death / Blew through the garden from the North and East / And blighted every beauty with chill breath.
I looked, and ah, my wraith before me stood, / His head all battered in by violent blows: / The fruit between my lips to clotted blood / Was transubstantiate, and the pale rose / Smelt sickly, till it seemed through a swift tear-flood / That dead men blossomed in the garden-close.