Plava grobnica () is an ode written by Serbian poet Milutin Bojić during World War I. It is dedicated to the soldiers that were buried in the sea near Vido island, Greece. In his unforgettable poem, Bojić expressed the tragic fate of Serbia, whose army had passed through Montenegro and Albania to the Greek islands of Corfu and Vido, where over 5,000 Serbian soldiers were buried at sea. Bojić survived the exodus from Serbia and the desperation of Corfu, and yet in the end succumbed to tuberculosis in Salonika. "Our church bells toll the dead instead of the hours," Bojić wrote of seeing his comrades-at-arms dying around him. At the time of the Serbian retreat he had been working on an epic poem, Cain, in which he compared Bulgaria's attack on Serbia (that precipitated the retreat) to the biblical story of Cain and Abel. The poem was one of the few things he carried with him as he made the winter journey over the mountains. Upon arriving at the Adriatic only to see his fellow Serbs being thrown out to the sea for burial, he penned one of the most moving war poems of his generation -- Plava grobnica or The Blue Sea Tomb. Hold on, Imperial galleons! Hamper your oars! Tread with a silent trotter! A proud mass, I hold, in the creep of night, Above this holy water. Here on the seabed, among the sleepy shells, Where algae covered by peat moss burrow, Lays a graveyard of heroes, lays brother beside brother, The Prometheuses of hope, the Apostles of sorrow. Don’t you notice how the sea is slow-moving, Not to disturb the eternal rest of the fallen? From the Deep trench peace is softly dreaming, While tired Moon rays fall in. This temple of mystery and the graveyard of sorrow For the giant corpse endless as our mind As calm as the midnight above the south islands is Yet dark as consciousness, cold and in despair. Can’t you feel from these livid depths That piety rules this seas And the air is rife with pantomime? It’s the soul of the fallen that roams with ease. Hold on, Imperial galleons! On the grave of my fallen brothers Veil your trumpets in mourning black! And let men-at-arms sing the mass Here where the waves smack. For many centuries will pass Unnoticed will remain the sea waves A new generation will