Not Religion but Death
At first church fame held up his lines to heights
Near immortality. Saint Paul’s robed Dean
Had read “The Soldier” in the lectern rites
Of Christ’s domed space before the altar screen.
It seems that Brooke knew this. He did not know
How close to death he moved across the sea.
That reading made him famous but the glow
Of rhymed eternity produced its plea
By sending a mosquito to his lip.
It sucked out life from him. A fever came.
He sank towards void upon the sail-less ship.
Death conquered, feeling not one shred of shame.
Death fails to feel regret because it claims
To lift his poetry with deathless flames.
~ Phillip Whidden