Armistice Day...

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Hello all,


I ended the day watchin a movie called simply Passchendaele; which in very graphic detail showed the horrors of Trench Warfare; Thank God I did not serve there!

As a child I grew up touring Verdun and St Mihiel  ... and the dualism of my patriotim shows up in one of my favorite songs: Warning! This is to be watched by oneself with a BIG box of kleenex...

http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/05/mcbride.htm

[Durango Flinthart]

 Bivouac of the Dead

THE MUFFLED drum's sad roll has beat   
 The soldier's last tattoo;   
No more on Life's parade shall meet   
 That brave and fallen few.   
On Fame's eternal camping-ground           
 Their silent tents are spread,   
And Glory guards, with solemn round,   
 The bivouac of the dead.   
 
No rumor of the foe's advance   
 Now swells upon the wind;     
No troubled thought at midnight haunts   
 Of loved ones left behind;   
No vision of the morrow's strife   
 The warrior's dream alarms;   
No braying horn nor screaming fife     
 At dawn shall call to arms.   
 
Their shivered swords are red with rust,   
 Their plumèd heads are bowed;   
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,   
 Is now their martial shroud.   
And plenteous funeral tears have washed   
 The red stains from each brow,   
And the proud forms, by battle gashed,   
 Are free from anguish now.   
 
The neighing troop, the flashing blade,   
 The bugle's stirring blast,   
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,   
 The din and shout, are past;   
Nor war's wild note nor glory's peal   
 Shall thrill with fierce delight     
Those breasts that nevermore may feel   
 The rapture of the fight.   
 
Like the fierce northern hurricane   
 That sweeps his great plateau,   
Flushed with the triumph yet to gain,   
 Came down the serried foe.   
Who heard the thunder of the fray   
 Break o'er the field beneath,   
Knew well the watchword of that day   
 Was "Victory or Death."     
 
Long had the doubtful conflict raged   
 O'er all that stricken plain,   
For never fiercer fight had waged   
 The vengeful blood of Spain;   
And still the storm of battle blew,     
 Still swelled the gory tide;   
Not long, our stout old chieftain knew,   
 Such odds his strength could bide.   
 
'T was in that hour his stern command   
 Called to a martyr's grave     
The flower of his beloved land,   
 The nation's flag to save.   
By rivers of their fathers' gore   
 His first-born laurels grew,   
And well he deemed the sons would pour   
 Their lives for glory too.   
 
Full many a norther's breath has swept   
 O'er Angostura's plain,   
And long the pitying sky has wept   
 Above its mouldered slain.     
The raven's scream, or eagle's flight,   
 Or shepherd's pensive lay,   
Alone awakes each sullen height   
 That frowned o'er that dread fray.   
 
Sons of the Dark and Bloody Ground,     
 Ye must not slumber there,   
Where stranger steps and tongues resound   
 Along the heedless air.   
Your own proud land's heroic soil   
 Shall be your fitter grave:   
She claims from war his richest spoil—   
 The ashes of her brave.   
 
Thus 'neath their parent turf they rest   
 Far from the gory field,   
Borne to a Spartan mother's breast     
 On many a bloody shield;   
The sunshine of their native sky   
 Smiles sadly on them here,   
And kindred eyes and hearts watch by   
 The heroes' sepulchre.     
 
Rest on, embalmed and sainted dead!   
 Dear as the blood ye gave;   
No impious footstep here shall tread   
 The herbage of your grave;   
Nor shall your glory be forgot   
 While Fame her record keeps,   
Or Honor points the hallowed spot   
 Where Valor proudly sleeps.   
 
Yon marble minstrel's voiceless stone   
 In deathless song shall tell,     
When many a vanished age hath flown,   
 The story how ye fell;   
Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's blight,   
 Nor Time's remorseless doom,   
Shall dim one ray of glory's light     
 That gilds your deathless tomb.   


Theodore O'Hara

[cpt dan blodgett]

DULCE ET DECORUM EST(1)

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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped 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.

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918