I did not lose my heart in summer's even When roses to the moonrise burst apart: When plumes were under heel and lead was flying, In blood and smoke and flame I lost my heart.
I lost it to a soldier and a foeman, A chap who did not kill me, but he tried; That took the sabre straight and took it striking, And laughed and kissed his hand to me and died.
-A.E. Housman
Posted by Ryuko (Member # 5125) on :
I always think of this poem when I think of war poems...
Dulce Et Decorum Est By Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!-An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
(The latin is: It is sweet and proper to die for one's country)
Edit: Oops, forgot to cite. -_-;;; Sorry.
[ December 22, 2003, 12:28 AM: Message edited by: Ryuko ]
Posted by ana kata (Member # 5666) on :
Abby, yes! That's one of my all time favorite war poems. It's by Wilfred Owen, by the way.
Here's another one.
John Anderson
John Anderson, a scholarly gentleman advancing with his company in the attack received some bullets through him as he ran.
So his creative brain whirled, and he fell back in the bloody dust (it was a fine day there and warm). Blood turned his tunic black
while past his desperate final stare the other simple soldiers run and leave the hero unaware.
Apt epitaph or pun he could not hit upon, to grace a scholar's death; he only eyed the sun.
But I think, the last moment of his gaze beheld the father of gods and men, Zeus, leaning from heaven as he dies,
whom in his swoon he hears again summon Apollo in the Homeric tongue: Descend Phoebus and cleanse the stain
of dark blood from the body of John Anderson. Give him to Death and Sleep, who'll bear him as they can
out of the range of darts to the broad vale of Lycia; there lay him in a deep solemn content on some bright dale.
And the brothers, Sleep and Death lift up John Anderson at his last breath.
Keith Douglas (1920 - 1944)
The author wrote this poem at Oxford when he was 20. He was later killed at the invasion of Normandy.