A Poem for Armistice Day

marite · November 11, 2007, 5:31pm

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
March 18, 1893-November 4, 1918

ciervo · November 11, 2007, 6:29pm

Rouge Bouquet

In a wood they call Rouge Bouquet
There is a new-made grave today,
Built by never a spade nor pick
Yet covered with earth 10 meters thick.
There lie many fighting men,
Dead in their youthful prime,
Never to laugh nor love again
Nor taste the Summertime.
For Death came flying through the air
And stopped his flight at the dugout stair,
Touched his prey and left them there,
Clay to clay.
He hid their bodies stealthily
In the soil of the land they fought to free
And fled away.
Now over the grave abrupt and clear
Three volleys ring;
And perhaps their brave young spirits hear
The bugles sing:
“Go to sleep!
Go to sleep!
Slumber well where the shell screamed and fell.
Let your rifles rest on the muddy floor,
You will not need them any more.
Danger’s past;
Now at last,
Go to sleep!”

There is on earth no worthier grave
To hold the bodies of the brave
Than this place of pain and pride
Where they nobly fought and nobly died.
Never fear but in the skies
Saints and angels stand
Smiling with their holy eyes
On this new-come band.
St. Michael’s sword darts through the air
and touches the aureole on his hair
As he sees them stand saluting there,
His stalwart sons:
And Patrick, Brigid, Columkill
Rejoice that in veins of warriors still
The Gael’s blood runs.
And up to Heaven’s doorway floats,
From the wood called Rouge Bouquet,
A delicate cloud of bugle notes
That softly say:
“Farewell!
Farewell!
Comrades true, born anew, peace to you!
Your souls shall be where the heroes are
And your memory shine like the morning-star.
Brave and dear,
Shield us here.
Farewell!”

Alfred Joyce Kilmer
December 6, 1886 – July 30, 1918

Booklady · November 11, 2007, 7:10pm

Apologia Pro Poemate Meo

I, too, saw God through mud,-
The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.
War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,
And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

Merry it was to laugh there-
Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.
For power was on us as we slashed bones bare
Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.

I, too, have dropped off Fear-
Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,
And sailed my spirit surging light and clear
Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;

And witnessed exultation-
Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,
Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,
Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.

I have made fellowships-
Untold of happy lovers in old song.
For love is not the binding of fair lips
With the soft silk of eyes that look and long,

By Joy, whose ribbon slips,-
But wound with war’s hard wire whose stakes are strong;
Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;
Knit in the webbing of the rifle-thong.

I have perceived much beauty
In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;
Heard music in the silentness of duty;
Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.

Nevertheless, except you share
With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,
Whose world is but the trembling of a flare,
And heaven but as the highway for a shell,

You shall not hear their mirth:
You shall not come to think them well content
By any jest of mine. These men are worth
Your tears. You are not worth their merriment.

Wilfred Owen

emeraldkity4 · November 11, 2007, 8:45pm

No More
I speak for a man who gave for this land
Took a bullet in the back for his pay
Spilled his blood in the dirt and the dust
He’s come back to say:

What he has seen is hard to believe
And it does no good to just pray
He asks of us to stand and we must
End this war today

With his mind, he’s saying, “No more!”
With his heart, he’s saying, “No more!”
With his life he’s saying, “No more war!”

With his eyes, he’s saying, “No more!”
With his body, he’s saying, “No more!”
With his voice, he’s saying, “No more war!”

Yeah, nothing is too good for a veteran,
Yeah, this is what they say
So nothing is what they will get
In this new American way

The lies we were told to get us to go
Were criminal, let us be straight
Let’s get to the point where our voices get heard
behind the White house gate
And I know what I’ll say

With his mind, he’s saying, “No more!”
With his heart, he’s saying, “No more!”
With his life he’s saying, “No more war!”

With his eyes, he’s saying, “No more!”
With his voice, he’s saying, “No more!”
With his body, he’s saying, “No more war!”

No more innocents dying
No more terror rising
No more eulogizing
No more evangelizing
No more presidents lying
No more war

With our minds, we’re saying, “No more!”
With our voices, we’re saying, “No more!”
With our lives, we’re saying, “No more war!”

Lyric and music by Eddie Vedder
[Body</a> of War](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-odXPj3oYAc]Body”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-odXPj3oYAc)

UriA702 · November 11, 2007, 8:47pm

Vedder is a god!

mathmom · November 11, 2007, 9:43pm

“Vale” from Carthage

I, now at Carthage. He, shot dead at Rome.
Shipmates last May. “And what if one of us,”
I asked last May, in fun, in gentleness,
“Wear doom, like dungarees, and doesn’t know?”
He laughed, “Not see Times Square again?” The foam,
Feathering across that deck a year ago,
Swept those five words --like seeds–beyond the seas
Into his future. There they grew like trees;
And as he passed them there next spring, they laid
Upon his road of fire their sudden shade.
Though he had always scrapped his mess-kit pure
And scrubbed redeemingly his barracks floor,
Though all his button glowed their ritual-hymn
Like cloudless moons to intercede for him,
No furlough fluttered from the sky. He will
Not see Times Square–he will not see–he will
Not see Times
change; at Carthage (while my friend,
Living those words at Rome, screamed in the end)
I saw an ancient Roman’s tomb and read
“Vale” in stone. Here two wars mix their dead:
Roman, my shipmate’s dream walks hand in hand
With yours tonight (“New York again” and “Rome”),
Like widowed sisters bearing water home
On tired heads through hot Tunisian sand
In good cool urns, and says, “I understand.”
Roman, you’ll see your Forum Square no more.
What’s left but this to say of any war?

(Carthage 1944)

Peter Vierek

alwaysamom · November 11, 2007, 11:04pm

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.

John McCrae wrote it during WWI, in May 1915, after witnessing the death of his friend.

Remembrance Day ceremonies in Canada often include this poem and young children all learn it in school. Veterans sell lapel poppies for the two weeks leading up to Nov. 11.

Jolynne_Smyth · November 12, 2007, 10:49am

These are heart-breaking…hard to read!

A Poem for Armistice Day

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