by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928)
A Christmas Ghost‑Story See original
Language: English
South of the Line, ... from far Durban,
A mouldering soldier lies - your countryman.
Awry and doubled up are his gray bones,
And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans
Nightly to clear Canopus: "I would know
By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law
Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?
And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking "Anno domini" to the years?
Near twenty-hundred liveried thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died."
Composition:
- Set to music by John Pierre Herman Joubert (1927 - 2019), "A Christmas Ghost-Story", op. 109 no. 5 (1985), from South of the Line, no. 5
Text Authorship:
- by Thomas Hardy (1840 - 1928), first published 1899
See other settings of this text.
Researcher for this page: Garth Baxter
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 12
Word count: 91