war poems

[skwerl-hat]

poetry is something thats always inspired and moved me, ive noticed there seems to be a poignency and power to poems written during great conflicts. As it happens i came across these from World War One and wanted to share them with you all (hope they havent been post before)
if ive posted them in the wrong forum of course move them to where is most appropriate.
also if anyone else has any favorite war poems post them in this thread
The Muse in Arms - The Road
Updated - Sunday, 27 April, 2003

First published in London in November 1917 and reprinted in February 1918 The Muse in Arms comprised, in the words of editor E. B. Osborne:

"A collection of war poems, for the most part written in the field of action, by seamen, soldiers, and flying men who are serving, or have served, in the Great War".


The Road
by Gordon Alchin

When first the paving of the Road
Rang to the tread of the marching Roman,
And Caesar's legions seaward strode
To find a yet unmastered foeman,-
Full many a curse, of ancient flavour,
Rolled far along the muddy Way;
A curse upon the highway's paver,
Whose echoes linger to this day!

A thousand years - (when England lay
Beneath the heel of the Norman raider):-
The cobbles of the age-worn Way
Echo the march of the mailed Crusader:
Whilst many an oath, of pious fervour,
Between their chaunt and roundelay,
Gives proof to any close observer,
That men are changed little to-day!

Again a thousand years - again
The ancient frontier Road enslaving,
Come horse and cannon, motor-train:-
All sweep along the narrow paving.
A wondrous change, you say? but listen!
Listen to the words they say!
What matter cannon, petrol, piston?
The men are just the same to-day!

Afterwards
by Ivor Gurney

Those dreadful evidences of Man's ill-doing
The kindly Mother of all shall soon hide deep,
Covering with tender fingers her children asleep,
Till Time's slow cycle turns them to renewing
In other forms their beauty - No grief, no rueing
Irrevocable woe. They'll lie, they'll steep
Their hearts in peace unfathomed, till they leap
Quick to the light of the sun, as flowers strewing,
Maybe, their own friends' paths. And that's not all.
When men who knew them walk old ways alone,
The paths they loved together, at even-fall,
Then the sad heart shall know a presence near,
Friendly, familiar, and the old grief gone,
The new keen joy shall make all darkness clear.

Better Far To Pass Away
by Richard Molesworth Dennys

Better far to pass away
While the limbs are strong and young,
Ere the ending of the day,
Ere youth's lusty song be sung.
Hot blood pulsing through the veins,
Youth's high hope a burning fire,
Young men needs must break the chains
That hold them from their hearts' desire.

My friends the hills, the sea, the sun,
The winds, the woods, the clouds, the trees -
How feebly, if my youth were done,
Could I, an old man, relish these!
With laughter, then, I'll go to greet
What Fate has still in store for me,
And welcome Death if we should meet,
And bear him willing company.

My share of fourscore years and ten
I'll gladly yield to any man,
And take no thought of "where" or "when,"
Contented with my shorter span,
For I have learned what love may be,
And found a heart that understands,
And known a comrade's constancy,
And felt the grip of friendly hands.

Come when it may, the stern decree
For me to leave the cheery throng
And quit the sturdy company
Of brothers that I work an:tong.
No need for me to look askance,
Since no regret my prospect mars.
My day was happy - and perchance
The coming night is full of stars.

To Mother
by Colwyn Philipps

Can I make my feeble art
Show the burning of my heart?
Five-and-twenty years of schooling
Since you bore me, weak and puling,
Every day and every hour
I have battened on your power,
While you taught of life the whole;
You my Best Beloved and nighest,
You who ever claimed the highest
Was the one and only goal.
Often weary, often ailing,
Never for a moment failing,
Always cheering, always propping,
Often checking, sometimes stopping,
When the sands of life seemed sliding
You were helping, you were guiding -
Claimed for me the glorious role;
You my loved one and no other,
You my only lovely Mother,
You the pilot of my soul.

If I Should Die
by Rupert 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 earth a richer 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 suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her iights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Cha Till Maccruimein
(Departure of the 4th Camerons)
by E. A. Mackintosh

The pipes in the streets were playing bravely,
The marching lads went by,
With merry hearts and voices singing
My friends marched out to die;
But I was hearing a lonely pibroch
Out of an older war,
"Farewell, farewell, farewell, MacCrimmon,
MacCrimmon comes no more."

And every lad in his heart was dreaming
Of honour and wealth to come,
And honour and noble pride were calling
To the tune of the pipes and drum;
But I was hearing a woman singing
On dark Dunvegan shore,
"In battle or peace, with wealth or honour,
MacCrimmon comes no more."

And there in front of the men were marching,
With feet that made no mark,
The grey old ghosts of the ancient fighters
Come back again from the dark;
And in front of them all MacCrimmon piping
A weary tune and sore,
"On the gathering day, for ever and ever,
MacCrimmon comes no more."

 

[Story]

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
Jarrell, Randall (1914-)

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

 

[scotrace]

Wilfred Owen
Dulce Et Decorum Est

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 disappointed shells 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 floundering 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.

 

[Katt in Hat]

Addendum by Jarrell to His Poem

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
Jarrell, Randall (1914-)

"A ball turret was a plexiglass sphere set into the belly of a B-17 or B-24 bomber and inhabited by two .50 caliber machine-guns and one man, a short, small man. When this gunner tracked with his machine-guns a fighter attacking his bomber from below, he revolved the turret; hunched upside-down in his little sphere, he looked like the foetus in the womb. The fighters which attacked him were armed with canon firing explosive shells. The hose was a steam hose." (Jarrell's notes)

I had posted this great, yet in several senses terrible, poem in late April. Brings War directly to your doorstep. :cry:

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Let me do my research...

and I'll find a poem written by one of Bert Stiles' (Serenade to the Big Bird) squadron mates after his death in a crash in Nov. '44. Very poignant.

-dixon cannon

 

[Hemingway Jones]

My all time favorite poem of war is "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner" as printed above. Nothing I have ever read surpasses its emotional impact.

I wrote a poem about war and, for better or worse, thought I'd share it with you all:

The Ruin

When once I held the steel in my hand,
And thrust it through a savage heart,
While the trumpets sounded the march,
And legions fell into the marsh,
I pushed forward, locked shield to shield,
With my brothers, my cousins, my blood.
And the earth was moist with the hearts' overflow,
Sweat stained eyes, dripping from my brow.
Sucking copper from my tongue,
The discipline of pace; imposing laws upon an ignorant race,
We snatched the crown from an aged kings brow,
In the crucible of our wills, we melted it down,
And minted sovereigns of our own.
We marched until we garrisoned the scribbled edge of an empire,
And fell behind our crenellated walls.

Now the tides of armies have receded,
Sweeping forest wood to bare prairies,
Winds lapping dust and dry wells,
Times neglect hewn stone from stone,
Our castles crumbled, the fissures pried,
Our enemies inside, farming our families' fields,
Reaping bushels of famine; dried fruits upon the vines,
Lessening the yields, beasts surrendered to the sun,
Where once vast and mighty armies were sated,
Where dreams of empire were born, and died.
-Timothy J. Steiner

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Dedicated to the memory of Bert Stiles

To A Fallen Friend

The Almight looked down and saw you fall
No longer will you answer the flight line call
Nor here the mighty Mustang engine roar
Or see the blood and feel the hate of War
You ventured forth on a noble quest
To challenge the Luftwaffe’s very best.

The sky was filled with bursting flak
Followed by the fatal Messerschmitt attack
They came spurting fire out of the sun
You were their target, your life was done.
War with it’s glory, War with it’s shame,
Wrote your last chapter in smoke and in flame.

You flew your final mission without regret
A mission most mortal men will soon forget
But rest in peace you will receive your due,
For the enternal skies are always blue.
Yes, await God’s call, again to fly
With an angel squadron in the Heavenly sky.

Richard T. Pressey, 1st Lt.
401st Sq., 91st Bomb Grp.
Bassingbourn, England 1944


:cry:

 

[Dixon Cannon]

I had one faithful comrade...

Ich hatt' einen Kameraden
Ludwig Uhland, 1809


Ich hatt' einen Kameraden
einen bessern findst du nicht.
Die Trommel schlug zum Streite,
er ging an meiner Seite
in gleichem Schritt und Tritt
(in gleichem Schritt und Tritt).

Eine Kugel kam geflogen,
gilt sie mir, oder gilt sie dir,
sie hat ihn weggerissen,
er liegt zu meinen Fssen,
als wars ein Stck von mir
(als wars ein Stck von mir).

Will mir die Hand noch reichen,
dieweil ich eben lad'.
Kann dir die Hand nicht geben,
bleib du im ew'gen Leben
mein guter Kamerad
(mein guter Kamerad).


-dixon cannon

 

[Tony in Tarzana]

Ich hatt' einen Kameraden
Ludwig Uhland, 1809

-dixon cannon

This poem was quoted, if I recall correctly, by a survivor of the sinking of the Bismarck recalling a service, held aboard the British ship that rescued him, for his fallen comrades. The old gentlemen wept, and my eyes got a bit misty watching the TV documentary that featured his interview.

 

[Story]

Reality Demands

By Wislawa Szymborska

Reality demands
we also state the following:
life goes on.
It does so near Cannae and Borodino,
at Kosovo Polje and Guernica.


There is a gas station
in a small plaza in Jericho,
and freshly painted
benches near Bila Hora.
Letters travel
between Pearl Harbor and Hastings,
a furniture truck passes
before the eyes of the lion of Cheronea,
and only an atmospheric front advances
towards the blossoming orchards near Verdun.


There is so much of Everything
that Nothing is quite well concealed.
Music flows
from yachts near Actium
and couples on board dance in the sunlight.


So much keeps happening,
that it must be happening everywhere.
Where stone is heaped on stone,
there is an ice cream truck
besieged by children.
Where Hiroshima had been,
Hiroshima is again
manufacturing products
for everyday use.


Not without its charms is this terrible world,
not without its mornings
worth our waking.


In the fields of Maciejowice
the grass is green
and on the grass is -- you know how grass is --
transparent dew.


Maybe there are no fields other than battlefields,
those still remembered,
and those long forgotten,
birch woods and cedar woods,
snows and sands, iridescent swamps,
and ravines of dark defeat
where today, in sudden need,
you squat behind a bush.


What moral flows from this? Maybe none.
But what really flows is quickly-drying blood,
and as always, some rivers and clouds.


On the tragic mountain passes
the wind blows hats off heads
and we cannot help--
but laugh.

 

[Mojito]

I first came across "Requiem to a Rear Gunner" in Norfolk. I research and write maritime history, and the elderly lady I was visiting to interview had family ties to a significant maritime event. But she herself had led a fascinating life, and in WWII and been a wren. We had visited a small local museum commemorating allied airmen during the wary, and on the wall I found and immediately committed this one to heart:

REQUIEM TO A REAR GUNNER

My brief sweet life is over,
My eyes no longer see
No summer walks,
No Christmas trees
No pretty girls for me.
I’ve got the chop; I’ve had it.
My nightly ops are done.
Yet in another hundred years
I’ll still be twenty one

By R.W. Gilbert

AE Housman wrote many powerful poems about war, many published in "A Shropshire Lad" in 1896. The volume of poetry sold extremely well up to WWI, when it struck such a chord with that generation that it went into multiple printings. Housman himself wrote that he hoped for the ultimate endorsement - that it would stop a bullet for a soldier who carried it over his heart.

Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live, and shame the land from which we sprung.

Live, to be sure, is nothing much to lose
But young men think it is, and we were young.

 

[Spitfire]

An Irish Airman Foresees his Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartans's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
No law, no duty bade me fight,
No public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

- W.B. Yeats

 

[Story]

November 11th is coming up, people

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

See also
http://thefedoralounge.com/showpost.php?p=199095&postcount=1

 

[Story]

Through the travail of the ages,
Midst the pomp and toil of war,
Have I fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.

In the form of many people
In all panoplies of time
Have I seen the luring vision
Of the Victory Maid, sublime.

I have battled for fresh mammoth,
I have warred for pastures new,
I have listed to the whispers
When the race trek instinct grew.

I have known the call to battle
In each changeless changing shape
From the high souled voice of conscience
To the beastly lust for rape.

I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave.

I cannot name my battles
For the visions are not clear,
Yet, I see the twisted faces
And I feel the rending spear.

Perhaps I stabbed our Savior
In His sacred helpless side.
Yet, I've called His name in blessing
When after times I died.

In the dimness of the shadows
Where we hairy heathens warred,
I can taste in thought the lifeblood;
We used teeth before the sword.

While in later clearer vision
I can sense the coppery sweat,
Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery
When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.

Hear the rattle of the harness
Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
See their chariots wheel in panic
From the Hoplite's leveled spear.

See the goal grow monthly longer,
Reaching for the walls of Tyre.
Hear the crash of tons of granite,
Smell the quenchless eastern fire.

Still more clearly as a Roman,
Can I see the Legion close,
As our third rank moved in forward
And the short sword found our foes.

Once again I feel the anguish
Of that blistering treeless plain
When the Parthian showered death bolts,
And our discipline was in vain.

I remember all the suffering
Of those arrows in my neck.
Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage
As I died upon my back.

Once again I smell the heat sparks
When my Flemish plate gave way
And the lance ripped through my entrails
As on Crecy's field I lay.

In the windless, blinding stillness
Of the glittering tropic sea
I can see the bubbles rising
Where we set the captives free.

Midst the spume of half a tempest
I have heard the bulwarks go
When the crashing, point blank round shot
Sent destruction to our foe.

I have fought with gun and cutlass
On the red and slippery deck
With all Hell aflame within me
And a rope around my neck.

And still later as a General
Have I galloped with Murat
When we laughed at death and numbers
Trusting in the Emperor's Star.

Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
Where the sunken road of Ohein
Closed us in it's quivering gloom.

So but now with Tanks a'clatter
Have I waddled on the foe
Belching death at twenty paces,
By the star shell's ghastly glow.

So as through a glass, and darkly
The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness
What the objects were I wrought,
But as God rules o'er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.

So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.



Written by George Patton.

 

[skwerl-hat]

victory poem

 

[Spitfire]

Great poems. Thank you for sharing. I re-read them all on this day. 11.11.
Let us never forget.

 

[scotrace]

As have I. My family will pay its respects at the cemetery today.

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Taps

Day is done, gone the sun,
From the hills, from the sky,
All is well, safely rest
Safely rest,
All is well.
Fading light
Dims the sight,
And a star gems the sky,
Gleaming bright
From afar, drawing nigh,
Falls the night.
Dear one, rest!

 

[Harp]

Epitaph

"In mine memory doth I see Death played,
Many others he took yet me he stayed.
To dwell while more this earth abound,
A man whose youth cannot be found."

 

[John Boyer]

At a Calvary Near The Ancre

One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
In this war He too lost a limb.
But his disciples hide apart;
And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
And in their faces there is pride
That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
By whom the gentle Christ's denied.

The scribes on all the people shove
And bawl allegiance to the state,
But they who love the greater love
Lay down their life; they do not hate.

--Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)