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9th May, 2025

Friday Poem – ‘The Sentry’ by Alun Lewis

Photo of bright red poppies illuminated against the black night

In honour of the 80th Anniversary of VE Day, this week’s Friday Poem is ‘The Sentry’ by Alun Lewis from his Collected Poems.

The Sentry
I have begun to die.
For now at last I know
That there is no escape
From Night. Not any dream
Nor breathless images of sleep
Touch my bat’s-eyes. I hang Leathery-arid from the hidden roof
Of Night, and sleeplessly
I watch within Sleep’s province.
I have left
The lovely bodies of the boy and girl Deep in each other’s placid arms;
And I have left
The beautiful lanes of sleep
That barefoot lovers follow to this last Cold shore of thought I guard.
I have begun to die
And the guns’ implacable silence
Is my black interim, my youth and age, In the flower of fury, the folded poppy, Night.