4b. Poetry

Rupert Brooke - The Soldier

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 sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

     And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

           In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

 

Siegfried Sassoon - Does it Matter?

 

Does it matter?—losing your legs?...
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after hunting
To gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter?—losing your sight?...
There’s such splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.

Do they matter?—those dreams from the pit?...
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won’t say that you’re mad;
For they’ll know you’ve fought for your country
And no one will worry a bit.

 

John McCrae - In Flanders Fields

 

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.

 

Wilfred Owen - Anthem for Doomed Youth

 

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

     — Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

     Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;

     Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

     And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

 

What candles may be held to speed them all?

     Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

     The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

 

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 gas-shells dropping softly 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 flound’ring 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.