Spoils Of The Dead - Poem by Robert Frost

Spoils Of The Dead  

      - by Robert Frost

Two fairies it was 

  On a still summer day 

    Came forth in the woods 

    With the flowers to play. 

    The flowers they plucked 

    They cast on the ground 

    For others, and those 

    For still others they found. 

    Flower-guided it was 

    That they came as they ran 

    On something that lay 

    In the shape of a man. 

    The snow must have made 

    The feathery bed 

    When this one fell 

    On the sleep of the dead. 

    But the snow was gone 

    A long time ago, 

    And the body he wore 

    Nigh gone with the snow. 

    The fairies drew near 

    And keenly espied 

    A ring on his hand 

    And a chain at his side. 

    They knelt in the leaves 

    And eerily played 

    With the glittering things, 

    And were not afraid. 

    And when they went home 

    To hide in their burrow, 

    They took them along 

    To play with to-morrow. 

    When you came on death, 

    Did you not come flower-guided 

    Like the elves in the wood? 

    I remember that I did. 

    But I recognised death 

    With sorrow and dread, 

    And I hated and hate 

    The spoils of the dead.