No one mentioned Yeats? No one? Well, allow me to. It's written in goode olde English, here goes. An Irish Airman Forsees 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 Killartan Cross,
My countrymen Killartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering clouds,
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.
One of my favourite poems, by the great German playwright, poet and novelist Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956). Dont know if it qualifies as a war poem, but it mentions war quite often, so:
Fragen eines lesenden Arbeiters Wer baute das siebentorige Theben? In den Bchern stehen die Namen von Knigen. Haben die Knige die Felsbrocken herbeigeschleppt? Und das mehrmals zerstrte Babylon, Wer baute es so viele Male auf? In welche Husern Des goldstrahlenden Lima wohnten die Bauleute? Wohin gingen an dem Abend, wo die chinesische Mauer fertig war Die Maurer? Das grosse Rom Ist voll von Triumphbgen? Wer erreichte sie? ber wen Triumphierten die Csaren? Hatte das vielbesungene Byzanz Nur Palste fr seinen Bewohner? Selbst in dem sagenhaften Atlantis Brllten in der Nacht, wo das Meer es verschlang Die Ersaufenden nach ihren Sklaven. Der junge Alexander eroberte Indien. Er allein? Csar schlug die Gallier. Hatte er nicht wenigstens einen Koch bei sich? Philipp von Spanien weinte, als seine Flotte Untergegangen war. Weinte sonst niemand? Friedrich der Zweite siegte im Siebenjhrigen Krieg. Wer Siegte ausser ihm? Jede Seite ein Sieg. Wer kochte den Siegesschmaus? Alle zehn Jahre ein grosser Mann. Wer bezahlte die Spesen? So viele Berichte, So viele Fragen.
Questions of a ReadingWorker
Who built Thebes with her seven gates, In books you will find the names of kings, Did the kings tow the stones ? And Babylon, destroyed so often, Who re-built it so many times? In which of the houses of golden Lima Did the builders live? Where did the workers go, on the night they finished the Chinese wall? Great Rome Is full of triumphal arcs. Who erected them? Whom did the triumphant Caesars conquer? Did famous Byzantium Only have palaces for her people? Even in legendary Atlantis, in the night when the sea swallowed it, The drowning cried for their slaves. Young Alexander conquered India. On his own? Caesar conquered the Gauls. Didnt he at least have a cook with him? Philip of Spain cried when his fleet sunk. Was he the only one? Frederik the second was victorious in the Seven Years War. He alone? A victory on each side. Who cooks the victory meal? A great man, every ten years. Who payed the costs?
history - that is the history of those who gave the order to write it down. history- that's the history of the winners who treaded down the slaves. no one wrote down the names of the slaves ,like no one is writing today the story of the life of the disanfrenchised. no ,it's time to take the guns to free from the spell of the oppressors. the last milleniums were only a short breath of the eternity. when will the mankind take the final breath ?
Only Great Men write history (or have it commissioned)... what the hell
should we then do? Write down the histories of each individual man,
woman, and child? And if we do, will history become irrelevant? The
story of the people may be the story of the people, but only great
humans actually make real history.
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" Sonnet 18
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest; So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Sonnet 130
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare
I normally dislike love poetry, but I must admit really like the Bards Sonnets...
I'm a sucker for Elisabethan poetry anyway...
Edited by Aelfgifu - 20-Feb-2007 at 05:35
Women hold their councils of war in kitchens: the knives are there, and the cups of coffee, and the towels to dry the tears.
Didn't Brecht write Baal? By the way, Aelfgifu: good call.
Shakespeare is the very definition of beauty put to verse. His plays
are also the paramount of the English language. We have been in decline
ever since that Great Man.
And there's talk of simplifying the english language again..Disasterous.
John Donne was an absolutely fantastic poet, and his sleaze and guile and logic and lust in the poem 'The flea' made my english classes in school a lot more interesting and stimulating.
Marke but this flea, and marke in this, How little that which thou deny'st me is; Me it suck'd first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled bee; Confesse it, this cannot be said A sinne, or shame, or losse of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoyes before it wooe, And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than wee would doe.
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, When we almost, nay more than maryed are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is; Though parents grudge, and you, w'are met, And cloysterd in these living walls of Jet.
Though use make thee apt to kill me, Let not to this, selfe murder added bee, And sacrilege, three sinnes in killing three.
Cruell and sodaine, has thou since Purpled thy naile, in blood of innocence? In what could this flea guilty bee, Except in that drop which it suckt from thee? Yet thou triumph'st, and saist that thou Find'st not thyself, nor mee the weaker now;
'Tis true, then learne how false, feares bee; Just so much honor, when thou yeeld'st to mee, Will wast, as this flea's death tooke life from thee.
What time the mighty moon was gathering light Love paced the thymy plots of Paradise, And all about him rolld his lustrous eyes; When, turning round a cassia, full in view, Death, walking all alone beneath a yew, And talking to himself, first met his sight. You must begone, said Death, these walks are mine. Love wept and spread his sheeny vans for flight; Yet ere he parted said, This hour is thine: Thou art the shadow of life, and as the tree Stands in the sun and shadows all beneath, So in the light of great eternity Life eminent creates the shade of death. The shadow passeth when the tree shall fall, But I shall reign for ever over all.
Dolphin, you have grown exponentially in my eyes in terms of respect.
Sadly, we live in a time where they revile poets. Which is a shame,
since poetry is probably the most expressive form of communication
available to manking. Is it any wonder poets in former times were so
revered? There was a time, aye, not so long ago, when all a man had to
do was learn the old songs and verses, and he could wander the whole
country, and people would feed him as best they could, and clothe him,
and all the town would sit about a fire and listen to their cultural
history, the stories, the defeats, the triumphs, the warriors and
mystics. Now they have iPods. Disgusting.
All that said, Milton's Paradise Lost may be the best poem ever written.
But I'll instead post one of my favorites. William Blake, The Tyger
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings der he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy
heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread
feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? and what dread
grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down
their spears
And water'd heaven with their
tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make
thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
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