Remembrance Day

[hawkwing_lb]

"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 good-byes.
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, 18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918

Comments

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

A brilliant poem by a brilliant poet.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Yes. Alas.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

I love that poem. I'm using the last five lines at the end of A Barricade In Hell as an afterword.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

I hate it. It is a good poem. But I hate it.

[stillnotbored.livejournal.com]

Which is exactly why it's such a good poem. Owen more than any of the war poets captured how that war really was, the horror of living through it while old men touted glory, duty and honor, and sat safe at home.

And in that horrible place Owens managed to create something beautiful. That doesn't take anything away from the truth of his words.

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[between4walls.livejournal.com]

I hate it when people say Owen is over-rated because of anti-war sentiment, tragic young death, etc. Because when he's on form, his technique, his combination of innovation and formalism, the way he turns everything horrible and ugly and rage-inducing into a beauty that sings off the page...

Eid al-Adha was a few days before Armistice/Remembrance/Veterans' Day. "The Parable of the Old Man and the Young" seems a propos; it isn't as well-structured a poem as the Anthem, but damn if it isn't a true thing still.

"So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned, both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake, and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets the trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one."

[hawkwing-lb.livejournal.com]

Yeah.

Fuck war, anyway.

[between4walls.livejournal.com]

Even when it's the least bad option, how many people have to screw up, through incompetence or malice, to get to the point where "let's see which of us can kill more than the other" becomes anything like a solution?