Chaplains memorial

Elegy for a Fallen Soldier:

The author of this poem lives in a valley below a national cemetery. The crack of rifle volleys in salute echo down the valley walls. The author has heard other echoes too; the sentiments of soldiers who served and lost a comrade in wars long ago.

Those who have now lived years after such a loss tell how their lives were profoundly deepened by the loss of a brother-in-arms. In the words of this poem, and in the lives of those left behind, the lost soldier lives on.

The poem speaks of the soldier as salt. How fitting. One belief is that the word “soldier” derives from “sal dieu” or “salt of God.” This salt galvanizes the living to make more of their lives; to feel life deeper, to see life whole.

As we mourn a death in battle; we also hear the lesson of this poem and perpare for the higher service to which we are called by this sacred loss.

This poem is a tribute to the author’s best childhood friend lost in battle on July 12, 1967.

Honor Mortuus, Honor Vita
(The Prayer of the Fallen Soldier)

By Daniel Bent

On the fields where I-salt die
Are sown the seeds of men fought by
The salted earth does not lie fallow
But yields lives no longer callow

From my loss you will yet long trace
Noble futures for bold embrace
For from my fall are lives to know
Only a brother’s blood bestow

So, cry for me under my shroud
Then wipe the tear and fulfill—
What my death hath endowed.