Best four lines of poetry..

[Mark Foxe]

As an Aussie, I find it hard to go past the poem “Anzac Cove” by Leon Gellert. But I can't extract just 4 lines and still do it justice.

There's a lonely stretch of hillocks;

There's a beach asleep and drear,

There's a battered broken fort beside the sea.

There are sunken trampled graves;

And a little rotting pier;

And winding paths that wind unceasingly.

There's a torn and silent valley;

There's a tiny rivulet

With some blood upon the stones beside its mouth.

There are lines of buried bones;

There's an unpaid waiting debt;

There's a sound of gentle sobbing in the South.

[nittenman]

I hope there are more posts to come as this has been fantastic reading. I've never really been into poetry, even the GW stuff, I'm ashamed to say. Now I'm beginning to look at it in another light.

I remember one about a night patrol that we studied at school. I think a Lieutenant was missing. Dont know what its called, cant quote any lines from it but now I'm going to have to go and find out thanks to this thread!

Keith

[Norrette]

Exposure - Wilfred Owen

To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us,

Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp.

The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp,

Pause over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice,

But nothing happens.

[DaveBrigg]

I remember one about a night patrol that we studied at school. I think a Lieutenant was missing. Dont know what its called, cant quote any lines from it but now I'm going to have to go and find out thanks to this thread!

Could it be 'Comrades: An Episode' by Robert Nichols? I've copied the first few lines, but it's quite long to post in full.

Before, before he was aware

The 'Verey' light had risen...on the air

It hung glistering...

And he could not stay his hand

From moving to the barbed wire's broken strand

A rifle cracked.

He fell.

Night warned. He was alone. A heavy shell

Whispered itself passing high, high overhead.

His wound was wet to his hand: for still it bled

On to the glimmering ground.

Then with a slow, vain smile his wound he bound,

Knowing, of course, he'd not see home again-

Home whose thought he put away.

His men

Whispered: 'Where's Mister Gates?' 'Out on the wire.'

'I'll get him ' said one...

Dawn blinked, and the fire

Of the Germans heaved up and down the line.

'Stand to!'

[nittenman]

You're a genius, Dave! I remember the Mister Gates bit now! Well done from the scant information I could remember.

Keith

[Norrette]

You're a genius, Dave! I remember the Mister Gates bit now! Well done from the scant information I could remember.

I like this one too, especially when he cries: My men, my men! have got a version of this on a CD with Paul McGann reading it. Just stops me in my tracks.

[DaveBrigg]

It's still on the syllabus, so I've read and discussed it rather a lot in the last few years. I'd be very interested in the Paul McGann CD if you can post some details npm

[Vista52]

Hi All,

I found this topic a little late in the day but I'm glad I did.

Post #25 made me smile. Dulce Et Decorum Est I think is one of the best.

Post #46 - spike10764 - incredible!

Paul

[walrus]

A batch, all by Kipling:

Equality of Sacrifice

A: "I was a Have."

B: "I was a "have-not."

(Together.) "What hast thou given which I gave not?"

Common Form

If any question why we died,

Tell them, because our fathers lied.

From a Canadian War Memorial

From little towns in a far land we came,

To save our honour and a world aflame.

By little towns in a far land we sleep;

And trust that world we won for you to keep.

and a slightly longer epitaph that I cannot read without 'hearing' it spoken with a Welsh accent.

A Dead Statesman

I could not dig: I dared not rob:

Therefore I lied to please the mob.

Now all my lies are proved untrue

And I must face the men I slew.

What tale shall serve me here among

Mine angry and defrauded young?

Tom the Walrus

[Norrette]

It's still on the syllabus, so I've read and discussed it rather a lot in the last few years. I'd be very interested in the Paul McGann CD if you can post some details npm

It's War Poems Read by Paul McGann & Regine Chandler. A double CD that contains most of the well known and some less well known poems from the pre-Napoleonic to the Bomb. 92 Poems in all. Fairly recent issue so available on Amazon etc.

http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/books/default.aspx?id=32514

Battle of Blenheim Sample

Cheers

Norrette

[DaveBrigg]

That's perfect timing Norrette, many thanks. There's a copy on Amazon for £5.80.

[Peter Shand]

Posts 1 and 44 have given the last lines of 'The General' by Siegfried Sassoon.

'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.'

I also like the first four lines of the 8 line poem:

'Good Morning; Good Morning!' The General said

When we met him last week on our way to the line.

Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,

And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.

I also was impressed by Sassoon's last four lines of 'They':

Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;

And Bert's gone syphilitic: you'll not find

A chap who's served that hasn't found some change.

And the Bishop said: 'The ways of God are strange!'

Regards to all, Pete

[susanhemmings]

sorry but its not complete if its not complete.......

still haunting though and a favourite of mine

They march when the midnight bids them go,

With their rifles slung and their pipes aglow,

Along the roads - the roads they know,

The road to the Menin Gate

Menin_Gate___Man_at_arms_poem___Menin_Gate.doc

[equusv]

sorry but its not complete if its not complete.......

still haunting though and a favourite of mine

They march when the midnight bids them go,

With their rifles slung and their pipes aglow,

Along the roads - the roads they know,

The road to the Menin Gate

Menin_Gate___Man_at_arms_poem___Menin_Gate.doc

O guns, fall silent till the dead men hear

Above their heads the legions pressing on:

(These fought their fight in time of bitter fear,

and died not knowing how the day had gone.)

From, The Anxious Dead by John McCrae

-the last poem he wrote before his death. In Flanders Fields was the 2nd last.

Bonfire/Susan

[susanhemmings]

thanks Bonfire.

another moving one.

susan.

[stuartd]

Last four lines from 'Before Action' by William Noel Hodgson (1893-1916):

Ere the sun swings his noonday sword

Must say good-bye to all of this;

By all delights that I shall miss,

Help me to die, O Lord.

[equusv]

thanks Bonfire.

another moving one.

susan.

That line from McCrae's last poem breaks my heart because he himself died not knowing "how the day had gone," and believing that things were pretty much lost. In fact, at the time of his death things were not looking well and he was despondent about it. It's seems a little premonitory.

Bonfire

[susanhemmings]

Just unimaginable.

Thanks, its certainly an evocative extract.

susan.

[equusv]

Don't know why this one haunts me but it does...from The Aisne, 1914-1915 by Alan Seeger

We first saw fire on the tragic slopes

Where the flood-tide of France's early gain,

Big with wrecked promise and abandoned hopes,

Broke in a surf of blood along the Aisne.

Bonfire

[marina]

Bonfire - I've posted the whole poem on the Great War poetry thread.

Marina

[equusv]

Bonfire - I've posted the whole poem on the Great War poetry thread.

Marina

Thanks for that. It's a great piece of work.

Bonfire

[marina]

Certainly is! And I hadn't read it before you posted, so thanks for that!

Marina

[maryh]

The Dug out by Siegfried Sassoon

And you wonder why I shake by the shoulder;

Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and shift your head. . .

You are too young to fall asleep forever;

And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.

and the last four lines of Laurences Binyons's For the Fallen (which includes the verse "They shall not grow old...")

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

Mary

[mctaz]

But War, - as war is now, and always was:

A dirty, loathsome, servile murder-job:-

Men, lousy, sleepless, ulcerous, afraid,

Toiling their hearts out in the pulling slime....

Gilbert Frankau 1918

[Jacksmum]

W.H. Auden.

To save the world you asked this man to die.

If he could see us now, would he ask..."Why?"