I was nineteen, serving in the Navy aboard USS Portland (LSD 37). When the Marine barracks were bombed, those Marines weren’t an abstraction to us. They were our Marines. I grew up that day.
Over the years, I wrote poems to try to express what I felt. This song brings together two of them, both of which I’ve been revisiting in recent years. One was written with Alan O’Brien in 1988 for a book; the thoughts of Beirut were already at its heart.
This is a funeral dirge for the Marines we lost, and for the day that changed so many of us.
Note: I was not a Marine. I didn’t almost join the Marines. My father was a Marine. After 18 years of Boot Camp, I felt more of a connection to them at times than I did my shipmates.
In the silence of the night
Where the candle shadows bend
I could hear your distant deaths
Like a prayer I could not end
Voices rise beyond the pale
Through the dark we are undone
Wandering souls beneath
The dying of the sun
Ahh Domine
Ahh Veritas
Carry these hearts through the hollow
Ahh Aeternitas
Ahh Luminis
Lead us where sorrow must follow
Bewildered at the sight
Of all this blood, I cry
For souls who fell without a sword
And never knew just why
They never saw the field
Nor chose the ground they died
No sword was drawn, no foe was faced
No battle met their eyes
I cry for battles never come
For final cries not given
For glory they could never give
Unto their gods in Heaven
I cry for all our shame
For death came unaware
And took from them what should be theirs
Before they could prepare
The sword held firmly in the hand
The enemy before
The final breath, so freely given
Amid the blood of war
For this is how a warrior
Should meet his final breath
Standing, with iron in his hand
And blood upon his lips
Ahh Domine
Ahh Veritas
The sword in hand
The enemy before them
Ahh Aeternitas
Ahh Luminis
The final breath
Freely given
Warriors beneath a darkened sky
Swords in hand, our hearts athunder
Grip on iron, sweat upon the brow
Drums mark time for those who die
Taste of earth and scent of man
Breath drawn deep before the cry
What madness binds our blood as one
When we have come so near to die?
Racing blood and sinews taut
Where fear and rapture come to meet
My beloved waits beneath the sun
Yet still I march on willing feet
But to war, to war we go
The affirmation of our life
A revelation shared in blood
For celebrations yet to come
For life is taken all for granted
Until we hear the final drum
From the bile of the pit
Does Lustif rise
Lustif
Lustif
It whispers glory
Into mortal ears
It asks our pride
It asks our mettle
It takes our fear
And promises
What men already own
A spurious immortality
What madness binds us so?
Life for granted
Until death is nigh
What rises from the pit?
Lustif
Lustif
And what remains
When battle dies?
The hollow
The hollow
Cold the stone overhead
Cold the earth beneath our backs
Still our spirits walked in time
Through the ruin, names intact
No crown rests upon our heads
No salvation left to claim
Only carvings in the granite
Still whispering our names
Domine, ah, in nocte
Vera nox, ah, Domine
Shadows gather in the nave
Silent are the bells above
Ahh ahh ahh
Miserere
Ahh ahh ahh
Miserere
Ahh Domine
Ahh Veritas
Carry these souls through the hollow
Ahh Aeternitas
Ahh Luminis
Lead them where sorrow must follow
Ahh Domine
Ahh Veritas
Carry these warriors through the hollow
Ahh Aeternitas
Ahh Luminis
Lead us where sorrow must follow
Ahh Domine
Ahh Veritas
Carry the fallen through the hollow
Ahh Aeternitas
Ahh Luminis
Lead us where sorrow must follow
Ahh ahh ahh
Into the hollow
Ahh ahh ahh
We become the echo
Miserere
Miserere
Ahh…
