ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 8, 2014 8:55:30 GMT -5
Another German poet:
SONG OF THE FALLEN
Lion Feuchtwanger
The skin dries up on our foreheads. A worm our brains inside us shreds The flesh in meadows rots all round Our mouths blocked up by stones and ground We wait.
The flesh decays, the bone is dry; We ask one question: why, oh why? This question will not go away: Why, why and why? Alack the day! We wait.
Our mouths are stopped with earth and dust Our question bursts out: is this just? The ground that covers us bursts out We restlessly the answers doubt. We wait
We, the earth’s seed, await in fear The answers come, the answers near Woe if it strikes! Hail whom it spares! The answer’s slow but comes: who hears? We wait.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 8, 2014 8:56:11 GMT -5
Another German poet:
OUT OF THE TRENCHES
Leo Sternberg
1 THE BROTHERS The man has submerged in the great army; The army has disappeared into the earth; far away lies the sea Of night-covered forest chains. Lost breezes pass between home and enemy land, They meet and fade away. And patrols rise up from the trenches like ghosts from the grave A helmet appears large for a moment before the night sky. Then the whispering troop disappears in the stormy woods. Only the wind rustles in the tree-tops and a call echoes in the darkness Patrol meets patrols and stamps like shadows past each another And one recognizes, from a voice in the dark, his brother and like a choked cry Whispers are heard as they pass: Wilhelm? Heinrich? Mother wrote today?. “Greetings” Till we meet again!” And then they disappear in different directions in the darkness The forest paths gleam brightly lit broadly by a flare Again sunken in the night: shots from the forward posts Silence of the hostile world. 2 THE RELIEF We lie snowed in the trenches like snow-covered clods of earth, Unknowing mirrors of the days and nights that roll over us, In the foremost trenches, cut off from the help of the world In front of the gun barrels of the enemies who aim across the level field, Our breasts, like our raised earth wall, only a defense Our death cry only a signal for the army Behind us, We are only the feelers and the nerve cord On which the burning town in the night and the flare pistols play their song Every whispered word, heard at the front Every step, that hisses in the trenches before us Until the hour of relief nears, when suddenly out of the foggy night An unknown person stirs us, who will watch for us and continue the fight. And we reach our comrade, whom we do not see. Through the fog we grasp his hand and take up the rifle and start to go. Then before we leave our post, A bullet lies before us in the snowy clods atop the trenches edge.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 8, 2014 8:56:41 GMT -5
Another German:
THE ROAD TO THE TRENCHES
Ernst Toller
Through grenade furrows And filthy puddles They walk. Over soldiers Freezing in a hole in the ground They stagger.
Rats dart squeaking over their path Stormy rain knocks with fingers of death On decaying doors Signal rockets Plague lanterns…
From trench to trench.
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 8, 2014 8:57:09 GMT -5
Another by Toller:
CORPSES IN THE PRIESTER WOODS
Ernst Toller
A dung heap of rotting corpses: Glazed eyes, bloodshot, Brains split, guts spewed out The air poisoned by the stink of corpses A single awful cry of madness
Oh women of France, Women of Germany Regard your menfolk! They fumble with torn hands For the swollen bodies of their enemies, Gestures, stiff in death, become the touch of brotherhood, Yes they embrace each other, Oh, horrible embrace!
I see and see and am struck dumb Am I a beast, a murderous dog? Men violated…. Murdered….
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 8, 2014 8:57:41 GMT -5
Another German poet:
HELMET OFF
Kurt Tucholsky There the large Pickelhaube lies In a black, dark hole in the earth. It rests quietly…But look, I believe That it is still moving.
A District President displays his large teeth “Must I recite mocking poetry at the grave? De mortuis nil nisi bene! “ As it happened.
Do not forget them: the chevaliers, The officers who sat on their wealth at home The young one is playing the zither of complaint – All of them beasts.
Helmet off! Full of piety? Yes, full of cakes. He lies on well-deserved dungheap. We must first of all curse the old And then look for good new ones to curse Until he has decomposed.
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 8, 2014 8:58:23 GMT -5
Another by Tucholsky:
PRAYER AFTER THE SLAUGHTER
Kurt Tucholsky
Heads off for prayer!
Oh God, our dirty and muddied old bones Have crept forth once more from the trench’s chalky stones. We appear before you to pray and do not remain silent. And ask you, Oh God: Why?
Why have we given our heart’s blood away? While the Kaiser’s six sons all living do stay. We once believed….Oh how stupid we were…! They made us all drunk…. Why?
One man screamed in his hospital bed for six months, Before dry food and staff doctors finished him off. Another became blind and took opium secretly. Three of us between us have only one arm… Why?
Faith, life, war and everything else we have lost It was they, the powers, who tossed us into it Like film gladiators. We had the best audience, But it didn’t die with us. Why? Why?
Lord God! If you really are there as we daily do learn Descend from starred heaven and show your concern! Come down to us mortals or send us your son! Tear the flags down, the orders, the decoration! Announce to the countries of the earth how we have suffered; How hunger. lice, shrapnel and lies our bodies have covered! Chaplains have carried us to our graves in your name. Declare they have lied! Is it us that you blame? Chase us back to our graves, but answer us clear! We kneel before You as best we can –but please lend us your ear! If our dying has not been completely without point, Do not anoint us with another year like 1914! Tell the people and drive them to desert! A battalion of corpses looks to you for comfort. All that remains for us is to come before you and pray! Away!
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 8, 2014 8:59:20 GMT -5
I'm going to try and track down some war poems by French, Austrian, Russian and maybe other Allied or Central Powers nations. Watch this space!
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 11, 2014 15:37:59 GMT -5
I'm having some trouble tracking down war poems from France, Russia and some of the other combatant countries.
In the meantime back to the Brits. This is a very long but IMO very fine and unjustly neglected poem by Gilbert Frankau.
A Song of the Guns in Flanders
Gilbert Frankau
THE VOICE OF THE SLAVES
We are the slaves of the guns, Serfs to the dominant things;
Ours are the eyes and the ears,
And the brains of their messagings.
Ours are the hands that unleash
The blind gods that raven by night, The lords of the terror at dawn
When the landmarks are blotted from sight By the thick curdled churnings of smoke —
When the lost trenches crumble and spout Into loud roaring fountains of flame;
Till, their prison walls down, with a shout And a cheer, ordered line after line,
Black specks on the barrage of gray That we lift — as they leap — to the clock.
Our infantry storm to the fray.
These are our masters, the slim Grim muzzles that irk in the pit;
That chafe for the rushing of wheels. For the teams plunging madly to bit
[5]
As the gunners swing down to unkey,
For the trails sweeping half-circle-right, For the six breech-blocks clashing as one
To a target viewed clear on the sight — Gray masses the shells search and tear
Into fragments that bunch as they run — For the hour of the red battle-harvest
The dream of the slaves of the gun !
We have bartered our souls to the guns;
Every fibre of body and brain Have we trained to them, chained to them. Serfs?
Aye! but proud of the weight of our chain — Of our backs that are bowed to their work- ings,
To hide them and guard and disguise — Of our ears that are deafened with service,
Of hands that are scarred, and of eyes Grown hawklike with marking their prey —
Of wings that are slashed as with swords When we hover, the turn of a blade
From the death that is sweet to our lords.
By the ears and the eyes and the brain, By the limbs and the hands and the wings,
We are slaves to our masters the guns — But their slaves are the masters of kings!
[6]
Headquarters
A league and a league from the trenches, from the traversed maze of the lines —
Where daylong the sniper watches and day- long the bullet whines,
And the cratered earth is in travail with mines and with countermines —
Here, where haply some woman dreamed (are those her roses that bloom
In the garden beyond the windows of my lit- tered working-room?),
We have decked the map for our masters as a bride is decked for the groom.
Here, on each numbered lettered square — cross-road and mound and wire,
Loophole, redoubt and emplacement, are the targets their mouths desire;
Gay with purples and browns and blues, have we traced them their arcs of fire.
And ever the type-keys clatter ; and ever our
keen wires bring Word from the watchers a-crouch below,
word from the watchers a-wing; And ever we hear the distant growl of our
hid guns thundering:
[7]
Hear it hardly, and turn again to our maps, where the trench-lines crawl,
Red on the gray and each with a sign for the ranging shrapnel's fall —
Snakes that our masters shall scotch at dawn, as is written here on the wall.
For the weeks of our waiting draw to a close * * * There is scarcely a leaf astir,
In the garden beyond my windows where the twilight shadows blurr
The blaze of some woman's roses * * * "Bombardment orders, sir."
[8]
Gun -Teams
Their rugs are sodden, their heads are down, their tails are turned to the storm, Would you know them, you that groomed them in the sleek fat days of peace — When the tiles rang to their pawings in the lighted stalls, and warm — Now the foul clay cakes on britching strap and clogs the quick-release?
The blown rain stings, there is never a star, the tracks are rivers of slime. (You must harness-up by guesswork with a failing torch for light. Instep deep in unmade standings, for it's active-service time ; And our resting weeks are over, and we move the guns to-night.)
The iron tyres slither, the traces sag; their blind hooVes stumble and slide; They are war-worn, they are weary, soaked with sweat and sopped with rain ; (You must hold them, you must help them, swing your lead and centre wide Where the greasy granite pave peters out to squelching drain.)
[9]
There is shrapnel bursting a mile in front on the road that the guns must take : (You are nervous, you are thoughtful, you are shifting in your seat, As you watch the ragged feathers flicker orange flame and break) But the teams are pulling steady down the battered village street.
You have shod them cold, and their coats are long, and their bellies gray with the mud; They have done with gloss and polish, but the fighting heart's unbroke ; We, who saw them hobbling after us down white roads flecked with blood. Patient, wondering why we left them, till we lost them in the smoke:
Who have felt them shiver between our knees, when the shells rain black from the skies ; When the bursting terrors find us and the lines stampede as one: Who have watched the pierced limbs quiver and the pain in stricken eyes, — Know the worth of humble servants, fool- ish — faithful to their guns!
[10]
Eyes in the Air
Our guns are a league behind us, our target a mile below,
And there's never a cloud to blind us from the haunts of our lurking foe —
Sunk pit whence his shrapnel tore us, sup- port-trench crest-concealed.
As clear as the charts before us, his ram- parts lie revealed.
His panicked watchers spy us, a droning threat in the void,
Their whistling shells outfly us — puff upon puff, deployed
Across the green beneath us, across the flank- ing gray,
In fume and fire to sheath us and balk us of our prey.
Below, beyond, above her,
Their iron web is spun ! Flicked but unsnared we hover,
Edged planes against the sun : Eyes in the air above his lair.
The hawks that guide the gun !
No word from earth may reach us, save
white against the ground, The strips outspread to teach us whose ears
are deaf to sound:
[11]
But down the winds that sear us, athwart our engine's shriek,
We send — and know they hear us, the rang- ing guns we speak.
Our visored eyeballs show us their answering pennant, broke
Eight thousand feet below us, a whorl of flame stabbed smoke —
The burst that hangs to guide us, while numbed gloved fingers tap
From wireless key beside us the circles of the map.
Line — target — short or over — Comes, plain as clock hands run.
Word from the birds that hover, Unblinded, tail to sun —
Word out of air to range them fair, From hawks that guide the gun !
Your flying shells have failed you, your land- ward guns are dumb;
Since earth hath naught availed you, these skies be open! Come,
Where, wild to meet and mate you, flame in their beaks for breath.
Black doves! the white hawks wait you on the wind-tossed boughs of death.
These boughs be cold without you, our hearts are hot for this, [12]
Our wings shall beat about you, our scorch- ing breath shall kiss;
Till, fraught with that we gave you, fulfilled of our desire.
You bank — ^too late to save you from biting beaks of fire —
Turn sideways from your lover, Shudder and swerve and run,
Tilt ; stagger ; and plunge over Ablaze against the sun, —
Doves dead in air, who climb to dare The hawks that guide the gun !
[13]
Signals
The hot wax drips from the flares On the scrawled pink forms that litter The bench where he sits ; the glitter Of stars is framed by the sand-bags atop of the dug-out stairs. And the lagging watch hands creep ; And his cloaked mates murmur in sleep — Forms he can wake with a kick — And he hears, as he plays with the pressel- switch, the strapper receiver click On his ear that listens, listens ; And the candle-flicker glistens On the rounded brass of the switch-board where the red wires cluster thick.
Wires from the earth, from the air ;
Wires that whisper and chatter
At night, when the trench-rats patter
And nibble among the rations and scuttle back to their lair ; Wires that are never at rest — For the linesmen tap them and test, And ever they tremble with tone : —
And he knows from a hundred signals the buzzing call of his own, The breaks and the vibrant stresses, — The Z, and the G, and the Esses,
[14]
That call his hand to the answering key and his mouth to the microphone.
For always the laid guns fret On the words that his mouth shall utter, When rifle and maxim stutter And the rockets volley to starward from the spurting parapet; And always his ear must hark To the voices out of the dark, — For the whisper over the wire, From the bombed and the battered trenches where the wounded moan in the mire. For a sign to waken the thunder Which shatters the night in sunder With the flash of the leaping muzzles and the beat of battery-fire.
[15]
The Observers
Ere the last light that leaps the night has hung and shone and died, While yet the breast-high fog of dawn is swathed about the plain, By hedge and track our slaves go back, the waning stars for guide — Eyes of our mouths, the mists have cleared, the guns would speak again!
Faint on the ear that strains to hear, their orders trickle down "Degrees — twelve — left of zero line — cor- rector one three eight — Three thousand" . . . Shift our trails and lift the muzzles that shall drown The rifle's idle chatter when our sendings detonate.
Sending or still, these serve our will ; the hid- den eyes that mark From gutted farm, from laddered tree that scans the furrowed slope, From coigns of slag whose pit-props sag on burrowed ways and dark. In open trench where sandbags hold the steady periscope.
[16]
Waking, they know the instant foe, the bul- lets phutting by. The blurring lens, the sodden map, the wires that leak or break ! Sleeping, they dream of shells that scream adown a sunless sky — And the splinters patter round them in their dug-outs as they wake.
Not theirs, the wet glad bayonet, the red and racing hour. The rush that clears the bombing-post with knife and hand grenade; Not theirs the zest when, steel to breast, the last survivors cower, — Yet can ye hold the ground ye won, save these be there to aid ?
These, that observe the shells far swerve, these of the quiet voice. That bids "go on," repeats the range, cor- rects for fuse or line. . . Though dour the task their masters ask, what room for thought or choice ? This is ours by right of service, heedless gift of youthful eyne !
[17]
Careless they give while yet they live; the dead we tasked too sore Bear witness we were naught begrudged of riches or of youth; Careless they gave, across their grave our calling salvoes roar, And those we maimed come back to us in proof our dead speak truth !
[18]
Ammunition Column
/ am only a cog in a giant machine, a link of
an endless chain: — And the rounds are drawn, and the rounds
are fired, and the empties return
again; Railroad, lorry and limber, battery, column
and park; To the shelf where the set fuse waits the
breach, from the quxiy where the shells
embark — We have watered and fed, and eaten our
beef; the long dull day drags by, As I sit here watching our "Archibalds"
strafing an empty sky ; Puff and flash on the far off blue round the
speck one guesses the plane — Smoke and spark of the gun-machine that is
fed by the endless chain.
I am only a cog in a giant machine, a little link in the chain,
Waiting a word from the wagon-lines that the guns are hungry again : —
Column-wagon to battery-wagon, and bat- tery-wagon to gun;
[19]
To the loaded' kneeling 'tivixt trail and wheel
from the shops where the steam lathes
run — Theres' a lone mule braying against the line
where the mud cakes fetlock deep ! There's a lone soul humming a hint of a song
in the barn where the drivers sleep; And I hear the pash of the orderly's horse as
he canters him down the lane — Another cog in the gun-machine, a link in the
selfsame chain.
I am only a cog in a giant machine, but a
vital link in the chain ; And the Captain has sent from the wagon-line
to fill his wagons again ; — From wagon-limber to gunpit dump; from
loader's forearm at breach, To the working party that melts away when
the shrapyiel bullets screech. So the restless section pulls out once more in
column of route from the right, At the tail of a blood-red afternoon; so the
flux of another night Bears back the wagons we fill at dawn to the
sleeping column again. . . Cog on cog in the gun-machine, link on link
in the chain !
[20]
The Voice of the Guns
We are the guns, and your masters ? Saw ye
our flashes? Heard ye the scream of our shells in the night,
and the shuddering crashes? Saw ye our work by the roadside, the gray
wounded lying, Moaning to God that He made them — the
maimed and the dying ; Husbands or sons. Fathers or lovers, we break them! We are
the guns !
We are the guns and ye serve us! Dare ye grow weary.
Steadfast at night-time at noon-time ; or wak- ing when dawn winds blow dreary.
Over the fields and the flats and the reeds of the barrier water
To wait on the hour of our choosing, the min- ute decided for slaughter? Swift the clock runs ;
Yea, to the ultimate second. Stand to your guns!
We are the guns and we need you! Here in
the timbered Pits that are screened by the crest and the
copse where at dusk ye unlimbered,
[21]
Pits that one found us — and finding, gave life
(Did he flinch from the giving?) ; Laboured by moonlight when wraith of the dead brooded yet o'er the living, Ere, with the sun's Rising the sorrowful spirit abandoned its guns.
Who but the guns shall avenge him? Strip
us for action ! Load us and lay to the centremost hair of the
dial-sight's refraction. Set your quick hands to our levers to compass
the sped soul's assoiling; Brace your taut limbs to the shock when the
thrust of the barrel recoiling Deafens and stuns! Vengeance is ours for our servants: trust
ye the guns !
Least of our bond-slaves or greatest, grudge
ye the burden ? Hard is this service of ours which has only
our service for guerdon: Grow the limbs lax, and unsteady the hands,
which aforetime we trusted ; Flawed, the clear crystal of sight; and the
clean steel of hardihood rusted ?
[22]
Dominant ones. Are we not trued serfs and proven — true to our guns ?
Ye are the guns! Are we worthy! Shall not
these speak for us, Out of the woods where the torn trees are
slashed with the vain bolts that seek
for US, Thunder of batteries firing in unison, swish
of shell flighting Hissing that rushes to silence and breaks to
the thud of slighting; Death that outruns Horseman and foot? Are we justified?
Answer, O guns!
Yea! by your works are ye justified — toil unrelieved ;
Manifold labours, co-ordinate each to the sending achieved;
Discipline, not of the fact, but the soul, un- remitting-, unfeigned ;
Tortures unholy ( ) maiming,
known, faced, and disdained; Courage that shuns
Only f oolhardiness ; even by these are ye worthy your guns !
[23]
Wherefore — and unto ye only — power hath
been given ; Yea! beyond man, over men, over desolate
cities and riven; Yea! beyond space, over earth and the seas
and the skies high dominions; Yea! beyond time, over Hell and the fiends
and the Death-angel's pinions ! Vigilant ones, Loose them, and shatter, and spare not. We
are the guns.
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ladylinda
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 11, 2014 15:39:09 GMT -5
Louse Hunting
Isaac Rosenberg
Nudes—stark and glistening, Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces And raging limbs Whirl over the floor one fire. For a shirt verminously busy Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice. And soon the shirt was aflare Over the candle he’d lit while we lay.
Then we all sprang up and stript To hunt the verminous brood. Soon like a demons’ pantomime The place was raging. See the silhouettes agape, See the gibbering shadows Mixed with the battled arms on the wall. See gargantuan hooked fingers Pluck in supreme flesh To smutch supreme littleness. See the merry limbs in hot Highland fling Because some wizard vermin Charmed from the quiet this revel When our ears were half lulled By the dark music Blown from Sleep’s trumpet.
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 11, 2014 15:39:56 GMT -5
Two fine poems by that unjustly neglected poet Ivor Gurney.
Strange hells
Ivor Gurney
There are strange Hells within the minds War made Not so often, not so humiliating afraid As one would have expected – the racket and fear guns made. One Hell the Gloucester soldiers they quite put out; Their first bombardment, when in combined black shout Of fury, guns aligned, they ducked low their heads And sang with diaphragms fixed beyond all dreads, That tin and stretched-wire tinkle, that blither of tune; “Apres la guerre fini” till Hell all had come down, Twelve-inch, six-inch, and eighteen pounders hammering Hell’s thunders. Where are they now on State-doles, or showing shop patterns Or walking town to town sore in borrowed tatterns Or begged. Some civic routine one never learns. The heart burns – but has to keep out of the face how heart burns.
The Silent One
Ivor Gurney
Who died on the wires, and hung there, one of two - Who for his hours of life had chattered through Infinite lovely chatter of Bucks accent: Yet faced unbroken wires; stepped over, and went A noble fool, faithful to his stripes - and ended. But I weak, hungry, and willing only for the chance Of line - to fight in the line, lay down under unbroken Wires, and saw the flashes and kept unshaken, Till the politest voice - a finicking accent, said: "Do you think you might crawl through, there: there's a hole" Darkness, shot at: I smiled, as politely replied - "I'm afraid not, Sir." There was no hole no way to be seen Nothing but chance of death, after tearing of clothes Kept flat, and watched the darkness, hearing bullets whizzing - And thought of music - and swore deep heart's deep oaths (Polite to God) and retreated and came on again, Again retreated - and a second time faced the screen.
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 13, 2014 15:11:45 GMT -5
The Stronghold
Sir John Squire
Quieter than any twilight Shed over earth's last deserts, Quiet and vast and shadowless Is that unfounded keep, Higher than the roof of the night's high chamber Deep as the shaft of sleep.
And solitude will not cry there, Melancholy will not brood there, Hatred, with its sharp corroding pain, And fear will not come there at all: Never will a tear or a heart-ache enter Over that enchanted wall.
But, O, if you find that castle, Draw back your foot from the gateway, Let not its peace invite you, Let not its offerings tempt you. For faded and decayed like a garment, Love to a dust will have fallen, And song and laughter will have gone with sorrow, And hope will have gone with pain; And of all the throbbing heart's high courage Nothing will remain.
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 13, 2014 15:12:29 GMT -5
Paradise Lost
Sir John Squire
What hues the sunlight had, how rich the shadows were, The blue and tangled shadows dropped from the crusted branches Of the warped apple-trees upon the orchard grass.
How heavenly pure the blue of two smooth eggs that lay Light on the rounded mud that lined the thrush's nest: And what a deep delight the spots that speckled them.
And that small tinkling stream that ran from hedge to hedge, Shadowed over by the trees and glinting in the sunbeams, How clear the water was, how flat the beds of sand With travelling bubbles mirrored, each one a golden world To my enchanted eyes. Then earth was new to me.
But now I walk this earth as it were a lumber room, And sometimes live a week, seeing nothing but mere herbs, Mere stones, mere passing birds: nor look at anything Long enough to feel its conscious calm assault: The strength of it, the word, the royal heart of it.
Childhood will not return; but have I not the will To strain my turbid mind that soils all outer things, And, open again to all the miracles of light, To see the world with the eyes of a blind man gaining sight?
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 13, 2014 15:13:11 GMT -5
A Generation
Sir John Squire There was a time that's gone And will not come again, We knew it was a pleasant time, How good we never dreamed.
When, for a whimsy's sake, We'd even play with pain, For everything awaited us And life immortal seemed.
It seemed unending then To forward-looking eyes, No thought of what postponement meant Hung dark across our mirth;
We had years and strength enough For any enterprise, Our numerous companionship Were heirs to all the earth.
But now all memory Is one ironic truth, We look like strangers at the boys We were so long ago;
For half of us are dead, And half have lost their youth, And our hearts are scarred by many griefs, That only age should know.
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 16, 2014 10:51:01 GMT -5
I've tracked down a few names of French war poets but so far only been able to track down one poem.
Here it is:
L’Adieu du Cavalier (The Cavalryman’s Farewell)
Guillaume Appollinaire
Ah Dieu ! que la guerre est jolie Avec ses chants ses longs loisirs Cette bague je l’ai polie Le vent se mêle à vos soupirs
Adieu ! voici le boute-selle Il disparut dans un tournant Et mourut là-bas tandis qu’elle Riait au destin surprenant
(English translation)
Good God! Isn’t war a lovely thing With its songs its killing time I’ve been polishing this ring Your sighs mingle with the wind
Good bye! The bugle call! He saddled up And disappeared some place to die While she - she remained To laugh at life’s surprises
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Post by ladylinda on Aug 16, 2014 15:03:24 GMT -5
Here are three First World War poems by Italian poets. The first two are by Guiseppe Ungaretti and the third one by Eugenio Montale.
Vigil
Guiseppe Ungaretti
A whole night long crouched close to one of our men butchered with his clenched mouth grinning at the full moon with the congestion of his hands thrust right into my silence I've written letters filled with love
I have never been so coupled to life
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