War Poetry?

[Pgfqeqall]

Hi All

Wondering if anyone else has any favourite war poets/poetry?


Wilfred Owen - Anthem for doomed youth
Dulce et decorum est
Disabled

Yeats - An Irishman forsees his death

[Fran]

'... And it was not disease or crime
Which got him landed there
But because they laid on my mother's son
More than a man could bare.
What with noise, and fear and death
Waking and wounds and cold
They filled the cup for my mother's son
Fuller than it could hold.
They broke his body and his mind
And yet they made him live
And they asked more of my mother's son
Than any man could give'

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These lines have been in my mind for years, I have no idea where I came across them or who the poet was but I'm fairly sure they are from a WW1 poem & refer to what used to be called shell shock.
I would love to know who the poet was.

[Maud Fitch]

Fran, I think it's part of this poem by one of my favourites, Rudyard Kipling. "The Mother's Son" or "Fairy Kist" taken from "Limits and Renewals" (1932).

The complete poem is--

I have a dream, a dreadful dream
A dream that is never done.
I watch a man go out of his mind,
And he is My Mother's Son.

They pushed him into a Mental Home,
And that is like the grave:
For they do not let you sleep upstairs,
And you aren't allowed to shave.

And it was not disease or crime
Which got him landed there,
But because They laid on My Mother's Son
More than a man could bear.

What with noise, and fear of death,
Waking, and wounds and cold,
They filled the Cup for My Mother's Son
Fuller than it could hold.

They broke his body and his mind
And yet They made him live,
And They asked more of My Mother's Son
Than any man could give.

For, just because he had not died,
Nor been discharged nor sick,
They dragged it out with My Mother's Son
Longer than he could stick....

And no one knows when he'll get well
So, there he'll have to be:
And, 'spite of the beard in the looking-glass,
I know that man is me!

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)

[Fran]

Thank you so much for that Maud ...

[Bighuey]

That poem reminds me of an old Columbia record I used to have that was recorded in 1918 by a group called The Peerless quartet. It was an anti-war song, partly a recitation about the horrors of war and as I remember it was the same theme as that poem. It was very stirring, it may have been based on Kipling's poem. I wish I still had the record but it got lost in one of my moves.

[andr70]

Actually I'm not a big fan of war poetry and really hate it because of its pessimistic colors in some creations. Positive and humor war poetry which shows a real life of soldiers without war horrors looks pleasantly acceptable.

[Simworm]

I remember studying war poems in school. I thought they were interesting. I remember one that was British and it was one that was pro-war. It was written to try and recruit more men for war. I cannot find it now though, it's not that I like it but I find it interesting....

[Poetomachia]

Hm. Definitely the first one that comes to mind is Stephen Crane, though I think I like him more as an amazing poet who happens to do war poems. The most striking of his works to goes as thus:

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on along,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above him,
Great is the battle god, great and his kingdom-
A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Swift, blazing flag of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind.
---
The irony here is just brilliant.

[Robin jackson]

i like this one by William Shakespeare
WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What’s he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call’d the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam’d,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say “To-morrow is Saint Crispian.”
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say “These wounds I had on Crispian’s day.”
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
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.