"Beach Burial" (1944) is a poem by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor. 
It was originally published in "Southerly" journal in 1944, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's single-author collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
The poem was written around the time of the battle of El Alamein in 1942 while Slessor was a war correspondent. It reflects his experience of seeing dead seamen being pulled from the surf and buried in the sand in graves marked with a cross bearing the words "Unknown Seaman".
Critical reception.
"The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature" called it a "fine poem which reflects the futility of war, it expresses the bewildered pity of battle-hardened troops as they perform rough and ready but deeply-tender last rites over the sodden, nameless corpses."
"The Oxford Literary History of Australia" stated that the poem was "notable for its formal experimentation with assonance, echo and half-rhyme."
In his commentary on the poem in "60 Classic Australian Poems" editor Geoff Page noted that this "is not a poem of strident assertion; it is a poem of 'perplexity', of 'bewildered pity, rather than a song of praise to the 'cause'". He concluded that "poems rarely come more perfect than this one."
Publication history.
After the poem's initial publication in "Southerly" it was reprinted as follows:
The poem has also been translated into Greek (1986), Indonesian (1991), and Arabic (1999).
Notes.
You can read the full text of the poem in "The Age", 29 October 1966, p23 and also on the "All Poetry" website.