Sunday, August 24, 2014

Mapiu War Memorial Gates - King Country

On my way to Ohakune on Friday I stopped to take photo of the memorial gates at Mapiu.  They are in need of some restoration (hopefully they will get some during the centenary).  There are no names on the memorial but there is a poignant extract from a poem by war poet Rupert Brooke.



The inscription on the right post includes an extract from III The Dead by Rupert Brooke:

Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead!
There's none of these so lonely and poor of old,
But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold.
These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene,
That men call age; and those who would have been,
Their sons, they gave, their immortality.
Blow, bugles, blow! They brought us, for our dearth,
Holiness, lacked so long, and Love, and Pain.
Honour has come back, as a king, to earth,
And paid his subjects with a royal wage;
And nobleness walks in our ways again;
And we have come into our heritage.

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