ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 5, 2014 14:27:46 GMT -5
This is self-explanatory with yesterday being the centenary of that terrible conflict that claimed millions of lives.
Today I'll post some contrasting poems from the very early stages of the war.
Then more characteristic ones from tomorrow onwards.
The Soldier
Rupert Brooke
IF I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is forever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 5, 2014 14:28:21 GMT -5
Into Battle
Julian Grenfell
The naked earth is warm with spring, And with green grass and bursting trees Leans to the sun’s gaze glorying, And quivers in the loving breeze; And life is Colour and Warmth and Light, And a striving evermore for these; And he is dead who will not fight; And who dies fighting has increase. The fighting man shall from the sun Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth; Speed with the light-foot winds to run, And with the trees a newer birth; And find, when fighting shall be done, Great rest, and fullness after dearth. All the bright company of Heaven Hold him in their high comradeship- The Dog-star, and the Sisters Seven, Orion’s Belt and sworded hip. The woodland trees that stand together, They stand to him each one a friend; They gently speak in the windy weather; They guide to valley and ridge’s end. The kestrel hovering by day, And the little owls that call by night, Bid him be swift and keen as they- As keen of sound, as swift of sight. The blackbird sings to him, ‘Brother, brother, If this be the last song you shall sing, Sing well, for you will not sing another; Brother, sing.’ In dreary doubtful waiting hours, Before the brazen frenzy starts, The horses show him nobler powers; O patient eyes, courageous hearts! And when the burning moment breaks, And all things else are out of mind, And Joy of Battle only takes Him by the throat, and makes him blind- Through joy and blindness he shall know, Not caring much to know, that still Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so That it be not the Destined Will. The thundering line of battle stands, And in the air death moans and sings; But Day shall clasp him with strong hands, And Night shall fold him in soft wings.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 5, 2014 14:28:51 GMT -5
The Volunteer
Herbert Asquith
Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent Toiling at ledgers in a city grey, Thinking that so his days would drift away With no lance broken in life’s tournament Yet ever ‘twixt the books and his bright eyes The gleaming eagles of the legions came, And horsemen, charging under phantom skies, Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme. And now those waiting dreams are satisfied From twilight to the halls of dawn he went; His lance is broken; but he lies content With that high hour, in which he lived and died. And falling thus, he wants no recompense, Who found his battle in the last resort Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence, Who goes to join the men of Agincourt
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 5, 2014 14:29:22 GMT -5
On Receiving News of the War
Isaac Rosenberg
Snow is a strange white word. No ice or frost Has asked of bud or bird For Winter’s cost. Yet ice and frost and snow From earth to sky This Summer land doth know. No man knows why. In all men’s hearts it is. Some spirit old Hath turned with malign kiss Our lives to mould. Red fangs have torn His face. God’s blood is shed. He mourns from His lone place His children dead. O! ancient crimson curse! Corrode, consume. Give back this universe Its pristine bloom.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 5, 2014 14:29:56 GMT -5
Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries A.E. Housman
These, in the day when heaven was falling, The hour when earth's foundations fled, Followed their mercenary calling, And took their wages, and are dead. Their shoulders held the sky suspended; They stood, and earth's foundations stay; What God abandoned, these defended, And saved the sum of things for pay.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 5, 2014 14:30:32 GMT -5
1914
Wilfred Owen
War broke: and now the Winter of the world With perishing great darkness closes in. The foul tornado, centred at Berlin, Is over all the width of Europe whirled, Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin. The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.
For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece, And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome, An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home, A slow grand age, and rich with all increase. But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 5, 2014 14:31:24 GMT -5
August 1914
Isaac Rosenberg
What in our lives is burnt In the fire of this? The heart’s dear granary? The much we shall miss? Three lives hath one life – Iron, honey, gold. The gold, the honey gone – Left is the hard and cold. Iron are our lives Molten right through our youth. A burnt space through ripe fields A fair mouth’s broken tooth.
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 6, 2014 14:15:38 GMT -5
To Germany
Charles Hamilton Sorley
You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed, And no man claimed the conquest of your land. But gropers both through fields of thought confined We stumble and we do not understand. You only saw your future bigly planned, And we, the tapering paths of our own mind, And in each other's dearest ways we stand, And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind. When it is peace, then we may view again With new-won eyes each other's truer form And wonder. Grown more loving-kind and warm We'll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain, When it is peace. But until peace, the storm, The darkness and the thunder and the rain.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 6, 2014 14:15:53 GMT -5
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Charles Hamilton Sorley
When you see millions of the mouthless dead Across your dreams in pale battalions go, Say not soft things as other men have said, That you’ll remember. For you need not so. Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know It is not curses heaped on each gashed head? Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow. Nor honour. It is easy to be dead. Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto, “yet many a better one has died before.” Then, scanning all the overcrowded mass, should you Perceive one face that you loved heretofore, It is a spook. None wears the face you knew. Great death has made all this for evermore.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 6, 2014 14:16:33 GMT -5
1915
Robert Graves
I’ve watched the Seasons passing slow, so slow, In the fields between La Bassée and Bethune; Primroses and the first warm day of Spring, Red poppy floods of June, August, and yellowing Autumn, so To Winter nights knee-deep in mud or snow, And you’ve been everything.
Dear, you’ve been everything that I most lack In these soul-deadening trenches—pictures, books, Music, the quiet of an English wood, Beautiful comrade-looks, The narrow, bouldered mountain-track, The broad, full-bosomed ocean, green and black, And Peace, and all that’s good.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 6, 2014 14:17:07 GMT -5
A Mystic As Soldier
Siegfried Sassoon
I lived my days apart, Dreaming fair songs for God; By the glory in my heart Covered and crowned and shod.
Now God is in the strife, And I must seek Him there, Where death outnumbers life, And fury smites the air.
I walk the secret way With anger in my brain. O music through my clay, When will you sound again?
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 6, 2014 14:18:26 GMT -5
In an Underground Dressing Station
Siegfried Sassoon
Quietly they set their burden down: he tried To grin; moaned; moved his head from side to side.
He gripped the stretcher; stiffened; glared; and screamed, 'O put my leg down, doctor, do!' (He'd got A bullet in his ankle; and he'd been shot Horribly through the guts.) The surgeon seemed So kind and gentle, saying, above that crying, 'You must keep still, my lad.' But he was dying.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 6, 2014 14:21:13 GMT -5
Battery Moving Up to a New Position from Rest Camp: Dawn
Robert Nichols
Not a sign of life we rouse In any square close-shuttered house That flanks the road we amble down Toward far trenches through the town. The dark, snow-slushy, empty street ... Tingle of frost in brow and feet ... Horse-breath goes dimly up like smoke. No sound but the smacking stroke Of a sergeant flings each arm Out and across to keep him warm, And the sudden splashing crack Of ice-pools broken by our track. More dark houses, yet no sign Of life ... An axle’s creak and whine ... The splash of hooves, the strain of trace ... Clatter: we cross the market place. Deep quiet again, and on we lurch Under the shadow of a church: Its tower ascends, fog-wreathed and grim; Within its aisles a light burns dim ... When, marvellous! from overhead, Like abrupt speech of one deemed dead, Speech-moved by some Superior Will, A bell tolls thrice and then is still. And suddenly I know that now The priest within, with shining brow, Lifts high the small round of the Host. The server’s tingling bell is lost In clash of the greater overhead. Peace like a wave descends, is spread, While watch the peasants’ reverent eyes ... The bell’s boom trembles, hangs, and dies. O people who bow down to see The Miracle of Calvary, The bitter and the glorious, Bow down, bow down and pray for us. Once more our anguished way we take Toward our Golgotha, to make For all our lovers sacrifice. Again the troubled bell tolls thrice. And slowly, slowly, lifted up Dazzles the overflowing cup. O worshipping, fond multitude, Remember us too, and our blood. Turn hearts to us as we go by, Salute those about to die, Plead for them, the deep bell toll: Their sacrifice must soon be whole. Entreat you for such hearts as break With the premonitory ache Of bodies, whose feet, hands, and side, Must soon be torn, pierced, crucified. Sue for them and all of us Who the world over suffer thus, Who have scarce time for prayer indeed, Who only march and die and bleed. * The town is left, the road leads on, Bluely glaring in the sun, Toward where in the sunrise gate Death, honour, and fierce battle wait.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 6, 2014 14:24:18 GMT -5
Dawn on the Somme
Robert Nichols
Last night rain fell over the scarred plateau And now from the dark horizon, dazzling, flies Arrow on fire-plumed arrow to the skies Shot from the bright arc of Apollo's bow; And from the wild and writhen waste below, From flashing pools and mounds lit one by one, O is it mist or are these companies Of morning heroes who arise, arise With thrusting arms, with limbs and hair aglow Toward the risen god, upon whose brow Burns the gold laurel of all victories, Hero and hero's god, th' invincible Sun?
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 6, 2014 14:26:11 GMT -5
Breakfast
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
We ate our breakfast lying on our backs, Because the shells were screeching overhead. I bet a rasher to a loaf of bread That Hull United would beat Halifax When Jimmy Strainthorpe played full-back instead Of Billy Bradford. Ginger raised his head And cursed, and took the bet; and dropped back dead. We ate our breakfast lying on our backs, Because the shells were screeching overhead.
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