Greyhound Posted 3 February , 2007 Share Posted 3 February , 2007 For me, Dulce et Decorum Est is haunting from beginning to end. I can recite it without ever having tried to memorise it. Owen again, from Spring Offensive: And the far valley behind where buttercups Had blessed with gold their slow boots coming up; Where even the little brambles would not yield But clutched and clung to them like sorrowing arms. …… Over an open stretch of herbs and heather Exposed. And instantly the whole sky burned With fury against them; earth set sudden cups In thousands for their blood. A.P. Herbert, Beaucourt Revisited: We only walk with reverence this sullen mile of mud The shell-holes hold our history, and half of them our blood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
auchonvillerssomme Posted 3 February , 2007 Share Posted 3 February , 2007 Without cheating and only using 4 lines of my favourite poem Somebody saw him fall, Part of him mud, part of him blood, The rest of him -- not at all. And yet I'll bet he was never afraid, The fool Robert W Service Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryn Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 Two ghostly soldiers are walking together: They are speaking together of what they loved in vain here, but the air is too thin to carry the things they say. They were young and golden, but they came on pain here, and their youth is age now, their gold is grey. Humbert Wolfe: The Soldier (1916). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
croy Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 Vance Palmer The farm, and the kindly Bush, and the young calves lowing; But all that my mind sees Is a quaking bog in a mist – stark, snapped trees, And the dark Somme flowing. Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Auimfo Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 I've got to confess to being a fan of Wilfrid Gibson. I lay an age and idly gazed at nothing, Half-puzzled that I couldn't lift my head; And then somehow I knew that I was lying Among the other dead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
punjab612 Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 Ok it's 5 lines! From T E Hulme 'Trenches:St. Eloi' Before the line, chaos: My mind is a corridor, The minds around me are corridors, Nothing suggests iteself. There is nothing to do but keep on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kath Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 There are no roses on sailors graves, Nor wreaths upon the storm tossed waves, No last post from the Royals band, So far away from their native land, No heartbroken words carved on stone, Just shipmates bodies there alone, The only tributes are the seagulls sweeps, And the teardrop when a loved one weeps. Anon. Translation of a German folk song. Kath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joan and Terry Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 Where were you when the bullets were flying All our young men lay dying And families at home left crying Where were you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveBrigg Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 They leave these blond still days In dust behind their tread They see with living eyes How long they have been dead. Isaac Rosenberg's final poem, written a few days before his death in April 1918. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy1918 Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 Brooke: If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich 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. As far as unknown poets go: A dull grey sky that hangs above, A dull grey earth that sleeps beneath... Nought there to see, and nought to feel Save how the sword of misery Doth stab and stab again unceasingly: Nor aught the gaping wound can ever heal For he is gone, for he is dead. He died for home and freedom, but he died, he died... Not bad for a 17 year old schoolboy who was still a year away from joining the army. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MartH Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 Hi Christmas: 1924 by Thomas Hardy (who turned to poetry after having his last book publicly burned on the instructions of the Archbishop of Cantabury) “’Peace upon earth!' was said. We sing it, And pay a million priests to bring it. After two thousand years of mass We've got as far as poison-gas.” Regards Mart Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greyhound Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 J.C. Squire, The Dilemma. GOD heard the embattled nations sing and shout "Gott strafe England!" and "God save the King!" God this, God that, and God the other thing "Good God!" said God, "I've got my work cut out." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
owilki1984 Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 Life is a city of crooked streets Death is a market where all men meet (Anon.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deano Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 was going to quote 'High Flight' a bit of Brooke or G.K.Chesterton but i was beaten to it! i scribbled this down when i saw it, dont know who wrote it though. and its six lines, sorry! After he sleeps, the cannon roar Disturb his calm repose no more, What though no voice of home was near To soothe with love his dying ear, The cloud is past from that dear brow, It glows in heavens own brightness now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roy litchfield Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 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 shrouded things 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 ! The Voice of the Guns, Gilbert Frankau Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Dixon Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 Not WW1 I know but I love it. When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, And the women come out to cut up what remains, Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains An' go to your Gawd like a soldier......... or I also like Z is for Zero, the time we go over But must of us wish we were way back in Dover Making munitions or rolling in clover And far, far away from the trenches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Dixon Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 Cynicism at its' very best: 'The world is washing out its stains,' he said. 'It doesn't like our cheeks so red: Young blood's its great objection. But when we're duly white-washed, being dead, The race will bear Field-Marshal God's inspection.' Inspection by Wilfred Owen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Borderman Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 Can’t believe everyone has take all my favourites. Again this is from the Second World War, but I think the sentiment and anger very is strong (There are 11 verses; I included more that 4 lines to lend understanding, but the last 4 can stand on their own) FORGOTTEN BY THE MANY REMEMBERED BY THE FEW WE HAD OUR ARMISTICE WHEN AN ARMISTICE WAS NEW ONE MILLION GERMANS GAVE UP TO US WE FINISHED OUR WAR WITHOUT MUCH FUSS FOR WE'RE THE "D" DAY DODGERS OUT HERE IN ITALY IF YOU LOOK AROUND THE MOUNTAINS IN THE WIND AND RAIN YOU'LL FIND THE SCATTERED CROSSES SOME WHICH BEAR NO NAME HEART BREAK AND TOIL AND SUFFERING GONE THE BOYS BENEATH THEM SLUMBER ON FOR WE'RE THE "D" DAY DODGERS OUT HERE IN ITALY Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C.TIERNEY. Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 How about posting your best lines (maximum four) of WW1 poetry..? Here are my starters for 10: 'And they that fought for England, following a falling star, Alas, alas for England, they have their graves afar. And they that rule in England in stately conclaves met, Alas, alas for England, they have no graves as yet.' G.K. CHESTERTON 'Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning and this snow. If anything might rouse him now, The kind old sun will know' WILFRED OWEN 'He's a cheery old card', grunted Harry to Jack, As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack. But he did for them both with his plan of attack.' SIEGFRIED SASSON 'And I remember not the war I fought in, But the one called 'Great'; which ended in a sepia November Four years before my birth.' VERNON SCANNELL 'So we crashed round the bend, We heard his weak scream, We heard his very last sound, And our wheels grazed his dead face.' ISAAC ROSENBERG THE GIFT OF LOVE by Tom Kettle In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown To beauty proud as was your mother's prime - In that desired, delayed incredible time You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own, And the dear breast that was your baby's throne To dice with death, and, oh! They'll give you rhyme And reason; one will call the thing sublime, And one decry it in a knowing tone. So here, while the mad guns curse overhead, And tired men sigh, with mud for couch and floor, Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead, Died not for Flag, nor King, nor Emperor, But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed, And for the Secret Scripture of the poor. Two days later Tom Kettle was killed in action. "nuff said" C.T. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Borderman Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 This is pre WW1, Boer War I think The glamour gone, some scattered graves and memories dim remain With his old pals across the field, he'll never trek again But yet there's nothing he regrets as he awaits his Call For what was done or lost or won, he did his bit - that's all Sergeant 4486 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spike10764 Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 "Since I can never see your face, And never shake you by the hand. I send my soul through time and space, To greet you. You will understand" Can't recall who wrote it, but this is mine. Says all I want to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marina Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 Geting quite tearful, sitting here, reading all these lovely lines... Marina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truthergw Posted 27 February , 2007 Share Posted 27 February , 2007 Can't believe everyone has take all my favourites. Again this is from the Second World War, but I think the sentiment and anger very is strong (There are 11 verses; I included more that 4 lines to lend understanding, but the last 4 can stand on their own) FORGOTTEN BY THE MANY REMEMBERED BY THE FEW WE HAD OUR ARMISTICE WHEN AN ARMISTICE WAS NEW ONE MILLION GERMANS GAVE UP TO US WE FINISHED OUR WAR WITHOUT MUCH FUSS FOR WE'RE THE "D" DAY DODGERS OUT HERE IN ITALY IF YOU LOOK AROUND THE MOUNTAINS IN THE WIND AND RAIN YOU'LL FIND THE SCATTERED CROSSES SOME WHICH BEAR NO NAME HEART BREAK AND TOIL AND SUFFERING GONE THE BOYS BENEATH THEM SLUMBER ON FOR WE'RE THE "D" DAY DODGERS OUT HERE IN ITALY Dave This was sung to the tune of Lili Marlene. It was a protest against a remark made by Lady Astor who thought that men who had taken part in the D-day landings should be demobbed first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jay dubaya Posted 28 February , 2007 Share Posted 28 February , 2007 Thus should we pay our tributary tears When Youth doth triumph over Death; when he, Mad with the promise of the future years, Yieldeth his will and dies for Liberty? John William Streets cheers, Jon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Borderman Posted 28 February , 2007 Share Posted 28 February , 2007 This was sung to the tune of Lili Marlene. It was a protest against a remark made by Lady Astor who thought that men who had taken part in the D-day landings should be demobbed first. Hence the anger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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