A collection of quotes on the topic of cenotaph.
The Unpleasantness at The Bellona Club (1928)
St. 7 (a cenotaph is an empty tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person who is buried elsewhere)
The Cloud (1820)
Context: For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
Speech to the Canadian Pilgrimage at Westminster Hall, London (29 July 1936), quoted in Service of Our Lives (1937), pp. 63-64.
1936
Context: I have no doubt in my own mind that many of the troubles of this world are due to the fact that we have lost our best, and so many of our best, who to-day would be among our leaders. I am confident of this: that if the dead could come back to life to-day there would be no war. They would never let the younger generation taste what they did. You have all tasted that bitter cup of war. They drank it to the dregs, and even after all these years the dead are doing their work. Within the last few months, for the first time, the French, Germans and ourselves united to preserve the burying places of our dead. On June 8th there was a little conference in London, and the French and Germans laid their colours on our Cenotaph. When men can do that there should be no more fighting.
