Poem played before Paschendale at gigs

gor

Ancient Mariner
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
"Anthem for a 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 for them from prayers or 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 silent minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.


It is a beautiful poem which really struck a chord in me, esp now. October 28th is one of the two national days in Greece. It's the day we celebrate the refusal to let Italy and (later on Nazi Germany) pass through Greece without a fight. Greece had received notice that the Italians were marching and were asked to surrender without a fight in view of their huge army force. the Greek Prime minister replied with a telegraph: "No!". Italy later lost to greece, while the Germans, who expecting to easily conquer Greece in days, were held back months, something that helped in Germans loosing by the Russian winter.

anyway, enough with this parenthesis. the poem is not read live, but is heard recorded (with bruce reading it). Also, a poem is heard before dance of death, anyone has info about this second poem? thanks...
 
Thanks a lot Gor! Nice one! [!--emo&^_^--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/happy.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'happy.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
[!--emo&:chug:--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/beerchug.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'beerchug.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
Wilfred Owen is an excellent WWI poet. I've got a book of the complete works of Wilfred Owen, and some of it is extremely disturbing, if not all of it. I recommend buying a book of his poems if you haven't already.

Saddest thing is that his poems are about death in war, and the pointlessness of war and how it's a waste of innocent people and were all written by him in the trenches as a soldier. He was one of the last deaths of the war, he was shot 9th November 1918, two days before the end of the war.
 
check [a href=\'http://www.angelfire.com/wa/warpoetry/Owen.html\' target=\'_blank\']it[/a] out
 
One of the most beautiful war poems I read was Arthur Rimbaud's. His poem I mention (but I forgot the name) was.. no let me post the poem first when I found. Why I post this? Because I also find that poem very similar to some part of Trooper. Let me find it first.

Gor, I didn't know how Greece endured German attacks. You (Greek people) made a very honourable and brave decision. I cannot say how much I appreciate. Be proud.

funny thing is today, (October 29) is the national day of Turkey. The day where Republic is declared. National days of two neighbor countries are consecutive [!--emo&:)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
[!--emo&:chug:--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/beerchug.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'beerchug.gif\' /][!--endemo--]

thanks man
 
Thanks gor for the poem...

Sorry, but, when does bruce read it???
[!--emo&:huh:--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/huh.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'huh.gif\' /][!--endemo--] [!--emo&:huh:--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/huh.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'huh.gif\' /][!--endemo--] [!--emo&:huh:--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/huh.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'huh.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
Here it is. Name of the poem is "Dormeur du Val" by Arthur Rimbaud.

I've found an english translation. (but of course french version is much better, read it if you know french)


[span style=\'font-size:8pt;line-height:100%\']Sleeper of the valley

It is a hole of greenery where sings a river
Sticking crazily on the spices of rags
Of money(silver); where the sun of the proud mountain,
Gleams; it is the small valley which foams of beams(shelves).

A young soldier fills(blocks) opened, bare head,
And the nape of the neck bathing in the cool blue watercress,
Sleeps; he(it) is spread(widened) in the herb, under the bare,
Pale in his(her,its) green bed where the light rains.

Feet in gladiolas, he sleeps. Smiling as
A sick child would smile, he makes a dream:
Nature, rock him(it) warmly: he is cold.

The flavors do not make, any more, the nostril shiver;
He sleeps in the sun, the hand on his breast
Quiet. He(it) has two red holes in highly-rated right(straight)... [/span]


Unlike many war poems, it describes the war not by depicting the atrocities of war with dreadful war scenes, but instead he describes a living nature, and puts a dead solider in it, and you don't understand he's dead until last line. A great contrast of life and death, lovely life vs. horrible wars.


Last four lines of Trooper are:

[span style=\'font-size:8pt;line-height:100%\']And as I lay there gazing at the sky,
My body's numb and my throat is dry
And as I lay forgotten and alone,
Without a tear I draw my parting groan [/span]


I don't say Trooper is inspired from that poem etc. But I think they sound similar. Both describes a the aftermath for a soldier, dead/near-dead soldier, alone, in nature.
 
The translation of the Rimbaud poem is quite sadly pretty lame as compared to the original text. It looks more like an Altavista translation than work done by a real translator! [!--emo&;)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/wink.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'wink.gif\' /][!--endemo--]

I know the original poem and I agree that it has its place in the so-called "war poetry", although Rimbaud has never seen a war and transcribes clumsily romantic ideas that have nothing to do with the crude reality of war.
 
[!--QuoteBegin-Scream for me Stockholm+Oct 29 2003, 06:04 PM--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Scream for me Stockholm @ Oct 29 2003, 06:04 PM)[/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--QuoteEBegin--] another nice poem about the WWI is "In Flanders Fields" it's about Paschendale.
I'll post it and the author of it sonn...cant remember it right now. [/quote]
In Flanders Fields, by Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, MD.

In Flanders Fields, where 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 we 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.


This poem is actually about the Second Battle of Ypres, not the Third...but both battles obviously happened in the same area. Lt-Col. McCrae was a surgeon of the 1st Canadian Division; he had been a professor at McGill University in Montreal before the war. Lt-Col. McCrae was killed in action overseas in 1918.

Today this poem is read everywhere in Canada on November 11th. People here wear poppies on their shirts and hats as rememberance of those who fell, not just in World War 1 but in the other conflicts Canada has participated in: the Boer War, WW2, the Korean Conflict, Cyprus, Bosnia, and Afghanistan.

I'm not ashamed to say this poem is something that makes my eyes water whenever I hear it; one of the greatest honours of my life was when I was asked to do the reading of it two Remembrance Days ago.

Poetry is one of the most powerful methods in which we can understand what happened in war. For some reason, poetry has the power to convey a message that pictures and stories cannot. Perhaps this is why Maiden's war songs do move me - it is just poetry to music.

Here is another highly moving poem...it's also by Wilfrid 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 out 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
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.
 
It's by Siegfried Sassoon.

I died in Hell
(they called it Passchendaele) my wound was slight
and I was hobbling back; and then a shell
burst slick upon the duckboards; so I fell
into the bottomless mud, and lost the light.



Interestingly enough, while I was searching for this poem on Google, I came across one of my own earlier comments on the BB!
 
that was the one i was thinking about. It stands in many places at the WWI museum in Ypres, where i was last week. [!--emo&:)--][img src=\'style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\' border=\'0\' style=\'vertical-align:middle\' alt=\'smile.gif\' /][!--endemo--]
 
Back
Top