Eva Gore-Booth turns ordinary grief on its head. The mourners do not cry over the buried body, because the body was only a battered stone dragged through the waves by the soul’s restless energy. Death, the speaker feels, frees the body from its tyrant — the soul — and gives it quiet rest under the grass. But the soul gets no such freedom. It remains caught in endless inner conflict, the “war” of tides near the shore. The final image is eerie: the soul watches the dead body with surprise, almost resentment, realizing that its old servant no longer needs anything and is now “free as dust and free as air.” The mood is calm, philosophical, and quietly ironic — less comforting than unsettling, since the body finds peace while the spirit stays restless.
Freedom — Summary
We who are mourners make no moan For the Body lost in the grave, For the Soul is a shining wave And the Body is but a stone Dragged out in the under tow And tossed by the waves to and fro, And worn and tormented and cast Back again on the rocks at last.
Ah, the body lost in the grave Is freed from the tyrant soul, Delivered from wind and wave. Current and quicksand and shoal. Freed from the cruel sea ... . But the spirit is never free .... There is no truce in that war Of the tides that clash near the shore.
Quietly under the green roof Does the worn-out body lie, With a shadow of strange reproof The soul wonders it could die— Wonders that her slave is dead, Has no need of daily bread, Free as dust and free as air, With nothing in the world to bear.