1415 and 1854 - good years for poetry

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Aggie Infantry
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AG
1415: During the Hundred Years' War between England and France, Henry V, the young king of England, leads his forces to victory at the Battle of Agincourt in northern France. Using longbows, the English killed over 10,000 Frenchmen while losing less than 300 men. Shakespeare wrote:
But we in it shall be remembered
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

1854: In an event alternately described as one of the most heroic or disastrous episodes in British military history, Lord James Cardigan leads a charge of the Light Brigade cavalry against well-defended Russian artillery during the Crimean War. Lord Alfred Tennyson wrote:
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

When the truth comes out, do not ask me how I knew.
Ask yourself why you did not.
BQ78
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AG
Quote:

Shakespeare wrote:
Not in 1415, it was almost 200 years later
Rabid Cougar
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1915 After the 2nd Battle of Ypres and the first massive German gas attack whch inflicted over 100,000 casualties.

John McCrea- He was Canadian though....

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.
ABATTBQ87
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BQ78 said:

Quote:

Shakespeare wrote:
Not in 1415, it was almost 200 years later
written in the year 1599:

https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/henry-v/
ja86
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If your going to do one from Ypres, don't skip Wilfred Owen circa 1917/1918

Dulce et Decorum Est

BY WILFRED OWEN

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.
BQ78
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AG
It's from the 70s but it was about WW1 and I always thought this was one of the more powerful anti-war songs (poems):

No Man's Land or the Green Field's of France

Oh how do you do, young Willy McBride
do you mind if i sit here down by your graveside
and rest for a while in the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done
and i see by your gravestone you were only nineteen
when you joined the great fallen in 1916
well i hope you died quick
and i hope you died clean
oh Willy McBride, was is it slow and obscene

Did they beat the drums slowly
did the play the fife lowly
did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
did the band play the "Last Post and Chorus"
did the pipes play the "Flowers of the Forest"

Did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
in some loyal heart is your memory enshrined
and though you died back in 1916
to that loyal heart you're forever nineteen
or are you a stranger without even a name
forever enshrined behind some old glass pane
in an old photograph torn, tattered, and stained
and faded to yellow in a brown leather frame

Did they beat the drums slowly
did the play the fife lowly
did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
did the band play the "Last Post and Chorus"
did the pipes play the "Flowers of the Forest"

The sun shining down on these green fields of France
the warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
the trenches have vanished long under the plow
no gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing down
but here in this graveyard that's still no man's land
the countless white crosses in mute witness stand
till' man's blind indifference to his fellow man
and a whole generation were butchered and damned

Did they beat the drums slowly
did the play the fife lowly
did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
did the band play the "Last Post and Chorus"
did the pipes play the "Flowers of the Forest"

And i can't help but wonder oh Willy McBride
do all those who lie here know why they died
did you really believe them when they told you the cause
did you really believe that this war would end wars
well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
the killing and dying it was all done in vain
oh Willy McBride it all happened again
and again, and again, and again, and again

Did they beat the drums slowly
did the play the fife lowly
did they sound the death march as they lowered you down
did the band play the "Last Post and Chorus"
did the pipes play the "Flowers of the Forest"
Burrus86
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AG
Don't forget 1814...

In 1814, we took a little trip.
Along with Colonel Jackson,
Down the Mighty Missisip....
OldArmy71
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AG
Love these poems.

Another, by A.E. Housman--a poem against British imperialism on Victoria's 50th Anniversary:

1887

From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,
The shires have seen it plain,
From north and south the sign returns
And beacons burn again.

Look left, look right, the hills are bright,
The dales are light between,
Because 'tis fifty years to-night
That God has saved the Queen.

Now, when the flame they watch not towers
About the soil they trod,
Lads, we'll remember friends of ours
Who shared the work with God.

To skies that knit their heartstrings right,
To fields that bred them brave,
The saviours come not home to-night:
Themselves they could not save.

It dawns in Asia, tombstones show
And Shropshire names are read;
And the Nile spills his overflow
Beside the Severn's dead.

We pledge in peace by farm and town
The Queen they served in war,
And fire the beacons up and down
The land they perished for.

'God save the Queen' we living sing,
From height to height 'tis heard;
And with the rest your voices ring,
Lads of the Fifty-third.

Oh, God will save her, fear you not:
Be you the men you've been,
Get you the sons your fathers got,
And God will save the Queen.
OldArmy71
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AG
And Yeats' commemoration of the famed (and failed) Easter Rebellion:

Easter, 1916

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

That woman's days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashes within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone's in the midst of all.

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven's part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
BQ78
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AG
Well if we are going to add the Easter Rebellion I present:

The Poem of James Connolly
(By Liam MacGabhann)
The man was all shot through that came today
Into the barrack square;
A soldier I I am not proud to say
We killed him there;
They brought him from the prison hospital;
To see him in that chair
I thought his smile would far more quickly call
A man to prayer.
Maybe we cannot understand this thing
That makes these rebels die;
And yet all things love freedom and the Spring
Clear in the sky;
I think I would not do this deed again
For all that I hold by;
Gaze down my rifle at his breast but then
A soldier I.
They say that he was kindly different too,
Apart from all the rest;
A lover of the poor; and all shot through,
His wounds ill drest,
He came before us, faced us like a man,
He knew a deeper pain
Than blows or bullets ere the world began;
Died he in vain?
Ready present; And he just smiling God!
I felt my rifle shake
His wounds were opened out and round that chair
Was one red lake;
I swear his lips said 'Fire!' when all was still
Before my rifle spat
That cursed lead and I was picked to kill
A man like that!
one safe place
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One story has this poem as written by Emma Dean in 1942, and later turned into a song by John Gorka. There is another version as to its origination, and that it was found by a nurse in a hospital in the Phillipines and kept for years by her daughter, eventually making its way to Gorka.


Let them in, Peter
They are very tired
Give them couches where the angels sleep
And light those fires
Let them wake whole again
To brand new dawns
Fired by the sun not wartime's
Bloody guns
May their peace be deep
Remember where the broken bodies lie
God knows how young they were
To have to die

So give them things they like
Let them make some noise
Give them road house bands not golden harps
To these our boys
And let them love, Peter
For they've had no time
They should have trees and bird songs
And hills to climb
The taste of summer in a ripened pear
And girls sweet as meadow wind
With flowing hair

And tell them how they are missed
But say not to fear
It's gonna be alright
With us down here
ABATTBQ87
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AG
[ol]

  • The Soldier

    by Rupert Brooke. Rupert Brooke, a brilliant, impassioned young Englishman, was one of the first to take arms when Great Britain went to war. He died in the Dardanelles expedition, on April 23, 1915. A few days before, he had sent from the Aegean Sea to the English-speaking peoples the poem by which he is best known:
    Quote:

    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.
  • [/ol]
    BQ78
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    AG
    The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner
    Randall Jarrell - 1914-1965

    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.
    YZ250
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    Lt. Henry Lee survived the Bataan death march and was imprisoned in Camp Cabanatuan. While there he wrote 36 poems. Late in the war he was being taken to Japan on a hell ship. He was killed on January 9, 1945 when the ship was bombed off of Formosa just 21 days before the camp was liberated. Prior to leaving he and others buried records. When the camp was being raided POWs told Lt. Lueddeke about the buried documents. He began digging and found Lee's book. Here is one of the poems.

    An Execution

    Red in the eastern sun, before he died
    We saw his glinting hair; his arms were tied.
    There by his lonely form, ugly and grim,
    We saw an open grave, waiting for him.
    We watched him from our fence, in silent throng,
    Each with the fervent prayer, "God make him strong."
    They offered him a smoke; he'd not have that.
    Then at his captor's feet coldly he spat.
    He faced the leaden hail, his eyes were bare;
    We saw the tropic rays glint in his hair.
    What matter why he stood facing the gun?
    We saw a nation's pride there in the sun.
    Corporal Punishment
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    AG
    Does pop music count?

    Children's Crusade
    by Gordon Sumner, aka, Sting
    1985

    Young men, soldiers, Nineteen Fourteen
    Marching through countries they'd never seen
    Virgins with rifles, a game of charades
    All for a Children's Crusade

    Pawns in the game are not victims of chance
    Strewn on the fields of Belgium and France
    Poppies for young men, death's bitter trade
    All of those young lives betrayed

    The children of England would never be slaves
    They're trapped on the wire and dying in waves
    The flower of England face down in the mud
    And stained in the blood of a whole generation

    Corpulent generals safe behind lines
    History's lessons drowned in red wine
    Poppies for young men, death's bitter trade
    All of those young lives betrayed
    All for a Children's Crusade

    The children of England would never be slaves
    They're trapped on the wire and dying in waves
    The flower of England face down in the mud
    And stained in the blood of a whole generation

    Midnight in Soho, Nineteen Eighty-four
    Fixing in doorways, opium slaves
    Poppies for young men, such bitter trade
    All of those young lives betrayed
    All for a Children's Crusade
    Rabid Cougar
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    AG
    THE HIGH TIDE AT GETTYSBURG
    by Will Henry Thompson
    (Will Henry Thompson served in the Fourth Georgia and took part in Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863)


    A cloud possessed the hollow field,
    The gathering battle's smoky shield:
    Athwart the gloom the lightning flashed,
    And through the cloud some horsemen dashed,
    And from the heights the thunder pealed.

    Then, at the brief command of Lee,
    Moved out that matchless infantry,
    With Pickett leading grandly down,
    To rush against the roaring crown
    Of those dread heights of destiny.

    Far heard above the angry guns
    A cry across the tumult runs,--
    The voice that rang from Shilo's woods
    And Chickamauga's solitudes,
    The fierce South cheering on her sons!

    Ah, how the withering tempest blew
    Against the front of Pettigrew!
    A Khamsin wind that scorched and singed
    Like that infernal flame that fringed
    The British squares at Waterloo!

    A thousand fell where Kemper led;
    A thousand died where Garnett bled:
    In blinding flame and strangling smoke
    Their remnant through the batteries broke
    And crossed the works with Armistead.

    "Once more in Glory's van with me!"
    Virginia cried to Tennessee;
    "We two together, come what may,
    Shall stand upon these works to-day!"
    (The reddest day in history.)

    Brave Tennessee! In reckless way
    Virginia heard her comrade say:
    "Close round this rent and riddled rag!"
    What time she set her battle-flag
    Amid the guns of Doubleday.

    But who shall break the guards that wait
    Before the awful face of Fate?
    The tattered standards of the South
    Were shriveled at the cannon's mouth,
    And all her hopes were desolate.

    In vain the Tennessean set
    His breast against the bayonet;
    In vain Virginia charged and raged,
    A tigress in her wrath uncaged,
    Till all the hill was red and wet!

    Above the bayonets, mixed and crossed,
    Men saw a gray, gigantic ghost
    Receding through the battle-cloud,
    And heard across the tempset loud
    The death-cry of a nation lost!

    The brave went down! Without disgrace
    They leaped to Ruin's red embrace;
    They heard Fame's thunders wake,
    And saw the dazzling sun-burst break
    In smiles on Glory's bloody face!

    They fell, who lifted up a hand
    And bade the sun in heaven to stand;
    They smote and fell, who set the bars
    Against the progress of the stars,
    And stayed the march of Motherland!

    They stood, who saw the future come
    On through the fight's delirium;
    They smote and stood, who held the hope
    Of nations on that slippery slope
    Amid the cheers of Christendom.

    God lives! He forged the iron will
    That clutched and held that trembling hill!
    God lives and reigns! He built and lent
    The heights for freedom's battlement
    Where floats her flag in triumph still!

    Fold up the banners! Smelt the guns!
    Love rules. Her gentler purpose runs.
    A mighty mother turns in tears
    The pages of her battle years,
    Lamenting all her fallen sons!


    JABQ04
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    AG
    I've always liked Tommy by Richard Kipling. Seems very appropriate.

    I went into a public 'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
    The publican 'e up an' sez, " We serve no red-coats here."
    The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
    I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
    O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' " Tommy, go away " ;
    But it's " Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play
    The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
    O it's " Thank you, Mister Atkins," when the band begins to play.

    I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
    They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
    They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
    But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
    For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' " Tommy, wait outside ";
    But it's " Special train for Atkins " when the trooper's on the tide
    The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
    O it's " Special train for Atkins " when the trooper's on the tide.

    Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
    Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap.
    An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
    Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
    Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Tommy, 'ow's yer soul? "
    But it's " Thin red line of 'eroes " when the drums begin to roll
    The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
    O it's " Thin red line of 'eroes, " when the drums begin to roll.

    We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
    But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
    An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
    Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
    While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Tommy, fall be'ind,"
    But it's " Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind
    There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
    O it's " Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the wind.

    You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
    We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
    Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
    The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
    For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an` Chuck him out, the brute! "
    But it's " Saviour of 'is country " when the guns begin to shoot;
    An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
    An 'Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!
    Rabid Cougar
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    AG
    This one is totally gut wrenching.... all for a horse... and yes I am bawling. I'm not sure when it was written. Tried to look it up but unsuccessful.

    136,000 horses and mules were sent form Australia to Europe during the great war. Only one was returned.
    America sent 325,00 horses and 156,000 mules.. Most were sold to local butchers after the war.

    An estimated 8 million horses and mules died from combat wounds, disease and worked to death......

    I Spoke to you in Whispers

    I SPOKE TO YOU IN WHISPERS
    By
    Neil Andrew
    I spoke to you in whispers
    As shells made the ground beneath us quake
    We both trembled in that crater
    A toxic muddy bloody lake
    I spoke to you and pulled your ears
    To try and quell your fearful eye
    As bullets whizzed through the raindrops
    And we watched the men around us die
    I spoke to you in stable tones
    A quiet tranquil voice
    At least I volunteered to fight
    You didn't get to make the choice
    I spoke to you of old times
    Perhaps you went before the plough
    And pulled the haycart from the meadow
    Far from where we're dying now
    I spoke to you of grooming
    Of when the ploughman made you shine
    Not the shrapnel wounds and bleeding flanks
    Mane filled with mud and wire and grime
    I spoke to you of courage
    As gas filled the Flanders air
    Watched you struggle in the mud
    Harness acting like a snare
    I spoke to you of peaceful fields
    Grazing beneath a setting sun
    Time to rest your torn and tired body
    Your working day is done
    I spoke to you of promises
    If from this maelstrom I survive
    By pen and prose and poetry
    I'll keep your sacrifice alive
    I spoke to you of legacy
    For when this hellish time is through
    All those who hauled or charged or carried
    Will be regarded heroes too
    I spoke to you in dulcet tones
    Your eye told me you understood
    As I squeezed my trigger to bring you peace
    The only way I could
    And I spoke to you in whispers......
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