As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-Poets’ Corner  
 

In say 1912 in the time of the supposedly big deal Basle Socialist Conference which got reflected in more circles than just workingmen, small shopkeepers and small farmers, or 1913 for that matter when the big deal European powers were waging "proxy" war, making ominous moves, but most importantly working three shifts in the munitions plants, oh hell, even in the beginning of 1914 before the war clouds got a full head of steam that summer they all profusely professed their undying devotion to peace, to wage no war for any reason. Reasons: artists who saw the disjointedness of modern industrial society, freaked out at what humankind had produced, was producing to place everybody in an inescapable box and hence their cubic fascinations from which to run, put the pieces to paint; sculptors who put twisted pieces of scrape metal juxtaposed to each other  to get that same effect, an effect which would be replicated on all those foreboding trenched fronts; writers, not all of them socialists either, some were conservatives that saw empire, their particular empire, in grave danger once the blood started flowing  who saw the v   of serious history books proving that, according to their Whiggish theory of progress,  humankind had moved beyond war as an instrument of policy; writers of not so serious novels drenched in platitudes and hidden gabezo love affairs put paid to that notion in their sweet nothing words that man and woman had too much to do to denigrate themselves by crying the warrior’s cry and for the sweet nothing maidens to spent their waking hours strewing flowers on the bloodlust streets; musicians whose muse spoke of delicate tempos and sweet muted violin concertos; and poets, ah, those constricted poets who bleed the moon of its amber swearing, swearing on a stack of seven sealed bibles, that they with all their creative brethren would go to the hells, literary Dante's rings, before touching the hair of another human, that come the war drums they all would resist the siren call, would stick to their Whiggish, Futurist, Constructionist, Cubist, world and blast the war-makers to hell in quotes, words, chords, clanged metal, and pretty pastels.

And then the war drums intensified and they, they made of ordinary human clay as it turned out, they who could not resist the call, could not resist those maidens now busy all day strewing flowers on the bloodlust streets for their soldier boys, those poets, artists, sculptors, writers, serious and not, musicians went sheepishly to the trenches with the rest of the flower of European youth to die deathless deaths in their thousands for, well, for ….            

 

BEFORE ACTION

By all the glories of the day, And the cool evening's benison: By the last sunset touch that lay Upon the hills when day was done; By beauty lavishly outpoured, And blessings carelessly received, By all the days that I have lived, Make me a soldier, Lord. By all of all men's hopes and fears, And all the wonders poets sing, The laughter of unclouded years, And every sad and lovely thing: By the romantic ages stored With high endeavour that was his, By all his mad catastrophes, Make me a man, O Lord. I, that on my familiar hill Saw with uncomprehending eyes A hundred of Thy sunsets spill Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice, 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. _W. N. Hodgson ("Edward Melbourne")_

COURAGE

Alone amid the battle-din untouched Stands out one figure beautiful, serene; No grime of smoke nor reeking blood hath smutched The virgin brow of this unconquered queen. She is the Joy of Courage vanquishing The unstilled tremors of the fearful heart; And it is she that bids the poet sing, And gives to each the strength to bear his part. Her eye shall not be dimmed, but as a flame Shall light the distant ages with its fire, That men may know the glory of her name, That purified our souls of fear's desire. And she doth calm our sorrow, soothe our pain, And she shall lead us back to peace again. _Dyneley Hussey_

OPTIMISM At last there'll dawn the last of the long year, Of the long year that seemed to dream no end, Whose every dawn but turned the world more drear, And slew some hope, or led away some friend. Or be you dark, or buffeting, or blind, We care not, day, but leave not death behind. The hours that feed on war go heavy-hearted, Death is no fare wherewith to make hearts fain. Oh, we are sick to find that they who started With glamour in their eyes came not again. O day, be long and heavy if you will, But on our hopes set not a bitter heel. For tiny hopes like tiny flowers of Spring Will come, though death and ruin hold the land, Though storms may roar they may not break the wing Of the earthed lark whose song is ever bland. Fell year unpitiful, slow days of scorn, Your kind shall die, and sweeter days be born. _A. Victor Ratcliffe_

THE BATTLEFIELD Around no fire the soldiers sleep to-night, But lie a-wearied on the ice-bound field, With cloaks wrapt round their sleeping forms, to shield Them from the northern winds. Ere comes the light Of morn brave men must arm, stern foes to fight. The sentry stands, his limbs with cold congealed; His head a-nod with sleep; he cannot yield, Though sleep and snow in deadly force unite. Amongst the sleepers lies the Boy awake, And wide-eyed plans brave glories that transcend The deeds of heroes dead; then dreams o'ertake His tired-out brain, and lofty fancies blend To one grand theme, and through all barriers break To guard from hurt his faithful sleeping friend. _Sydney Oswald_

"ON LES AURA!" SOLDAT JACQUES BONHOMME LOQUITUR: See you that stretch of shell-torn mud spotted with pools of mire, Crossed by a burst abandoned trench and tortured strands of wire, Where splintered pickets reel and sag and leprous trench-rats play, That scour the Devil's hunting-ground to seek their carrion prey? That is the field my father loved, the field that once was mine, The land I nursed for my child's child as my fathers did long syne. See there a mound of powdered stones, all flattened, smashed, and torn, Gone black with damp and green with slime?--Ere you and I were born My father's father built a house, a little house and bare, And there I brought my woman home--that heap of rubble there! The soil of France! Fat fields and green that bred my blood and bone! Each wound that scars my bosom's pride burns deeper than my own. But yet there is one thing to say--one thing that pays for all, Whatever lot our bodies know, whatever fate befall, We hold the line! We hold it still! My fields are No Man's Land, But the good God is debonair and holds us by the hand. "_On les aura!_" See there! and there I soaked heaps of huddled, grey! My fields shall laugh--enriched by those who sought them for a prey. _James H. Knight-Adkin_