![]() ![]() It was originally marked by a wooden Celtic cross. Gregory’s grave used to be different, too. Soon after I recited this poem at Gregory’s grave, I heard above me the sound of a single-engine propeller plane, as if to remind me of what flight used to be. The years to come seemed waste of breath, All work together to celebrate the “lonely impulse of delight,” the moment of balanced stillness that ends the poem. Symmetrically divided into two equal parts by its two periods, the halves are themselves divided into two stanza-like quarters, each four lines long, each rhyming a-b-a-b, and each containing numerous antitheses. ![]() The balanced order of the plot reminded me of the balanced order in “An Irish Airman Foresees his Death,” the poem in which William Butler Yeats gave lasting voice to Robert Gregory. Gregory’s grave stands at the far right of the first row. A box hedge surrounds the plot, and a row of mature thuja trees stands opposite, shading a bench where visitors can reflect on the consequences of the Great War or pay their respects to those interred here. From behind, a white stone cross reaches 15 feet up, with a metal sword set on its front and those all-too familiar words, “Their Name Liveth Forevermore,” carved into its base. Twenty-five Commonwealth casualties of World War I are buried in this section, their white tablet headstones set in two rows. His grave stands in a quiet corner of Padua’s elaborate Cimitero Maggiore in a well-maintained section distinguished by its symmetry and simplicity. January 23, 2018, marked the 100th anniversary of the death in Italy of Ireland’s most famous aviator, Major Robert Gregory. Yeats’s tower, Lady Gregory’s autograph tree, and the grave of Irish airman Robert Gregory, whose death inspired some of Yeats’s most well-known poems. ![]()
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