"A Death in the Family"

Christopher Hutchins has written a very sad article in Vanity Fair about the death of a young soldier, Mark Daily, who was killed in action in Iraq.

An earlier Irish soldier from our extended family, Anthony O'Daly, was killed by his enemies, and memorialized in the following words:

Since your limbs were laid out,
The stars do not shine!
The fish leap not out in the waves!
On our meadows the dew
Does not fall in the morn,
For O'Daly is dead!

Not a flower can be born!
Not a word can be said!
Not a tree have a leaf!
For O'Daly is dead!

Anthony!
After you,
There is nothing to do!
There is nothing but grief!

Anthony O'Daly
Poem by James Stephens from "Reincarnations" (1942)
after the Irish of Anthony Raftery

There is a recording of Samuel Barber's setting of this piece on YouTube.