[Maryann Corbett]

We've had threads for Memorial Day before, though they have sometimes devolved into postings of our own work. Vowing to avoid that, I'd like to start a new one. Thanks to my local friend Richard Broderick for making me aware of this poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.


Grief

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy dead in silence like to death—
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go.

[William A. Baurle]

Beautiful poem by EBB. I haven't seen it before. Thank you, Maryann. I love the double stresses in L4. Lines 10-11 have a Miltonic cadence and power.

[Julie Steiner]

Golly, that's good.

Here's In Foreign Fields by M. A. Griffiths, which plays off two of the biggies of the genre. Namely:

The rondeau ‘In Flanders Fields’ by John McCrae (1872-1918), which begins:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; ...

The sonnet ‘The Soldier’ by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915), which begins:

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. ...

[Julie Steiner]

Okay, just one more Mazpoem, and then I'll stop, I promise. Edited a bit since it appeared in Grasshopper (Arrowhead Press, UK / Able Muse Press, North American reprint):

Death and the Donkey

‘Donne’s famous piece on Death? Well, naturally,
I know it well, but think my copy’s lost.
Perhaps you’ll lend me your anthology?’
You briefcased it. Alas, Donne’s sonnet crossed
a page, and at the funeral, you rushed
the octave, closed the book, po-faced – so cruel
to leave that sweet sestet unvoiced. I crushed
the urge to cry out ‘Finish it, you fool!’

Resentment rankles still. She was denied
the triumph of that close, and, unashamed,
it seemed Death sniggered in my ear. You lied:
You did not know the poem as you’d claimed.
That night, alone, I read the verse aloud.
Both Death and dolts lack reason to be proud.


Posted 10th June 2003 to Sonnet Central. Excerpted responses to comment:

This was prompted by Donne’s sonnet’s having been mentioned here. It describes what actually happened at my mother’s funeral. I wanted the sonnet read in the service and the idiot minister claimed to be familiar with the poem, but because it was spread across two pages in the book I lent him, he only read the first eight lines. I felt so cheated that he’d omitted the sestet – we’re more sensitive at times like that of course, but I still resent it.

[Maryann Corbett]

An alternative take on memorials for dead soldiers, by William Stafford:


At the Un-National Monument along the Canadian Border


This is the field where the battle did not happen,
where the unknown soldier did not die.
This is the field where grass joined hands,
where no monument stands,
and the only heroic thing is the sky.

Birds fly here without any sound,
unfolding their wings across the open.
No people killed—or were killed—on this ground
hallowed by neglect and an air so tame
that people celebrate it by forgetting its name.

[Andrew Frisardi]

The Browning poem is powerful--I had not known it. Thanks for posting it, Maryann.

Mary Borden’s “Song of the Mud” is from her mostly prose book The Forbidden Zone, which I posted a link to over at Discerning Eye. She wrote the book about her experiences founding and managing a hospital and as a nurse at the Front in World War I. Borden was a novelist-memoirist, more than a poet, and her eye for detail is amazing.

The Song of the Mud

This is the song of the mud,
The pale yellow glistening mud that covers the hills like satin;
The grey gleaming silvery mud that is spread like enamel over the valleys;
The frothing, squirting, spurting, liquid mud that gurgles along the road beds;
The thick elastic mud that is kneaded and pounded and squeezed under the hoofs of the horses;
The invincible, inexhaustible mud of the war zone.

This is the song of the mud, the uniform of the poilu.
His coat is of mud, his great dragging flapping coat, that is too big for him and too heavy;
His coat that once was blue and now is grey and stiff with the mud that cakes to it.
This is the mud that clothes him. His trousers and boots are of mud,
And his skin is of mud;
And there is mud in his beard.
His head is crowned with a helmet of mud.
He wears it well.
He wears it as a king wears the ermine that bores him.
He has set a new style in clothing;
He has introduced the chic of mud.

This is the song of the mud that wriggles its way into battle.
The impertinent, the intrusive, the ubiquitous, the unwelcome,
The slimy inveterate nuisance,
That fills the trenches,
That mixes in with the food of the soldiers,
That spoils the working of motors and crawls into their secret parts,
That spreads itself over the guns,
That sucks the guns down and holds them fast in its slimy voluminous lips,
That has no respect for destruction and muzzles the bursting shells;
And slowly, softly, easily,
Soaks up the fire, the noise; soaks up the energy and the courage;
Soaks up the power of armies;
Soaks up the battle.
Just soaks it up and thus stops it.

This is the hymn of mud-the obscene, the filthy, the putrid,
The vast liquid grave of our armies. It has drowned our men.
Its monstrous distended belly reeks with the undigested dead.
Our men have gone into it, sinking slowly, and struggling and slowly disappearing.
Our fine men, our brave, strong, young men;
Our glowing red, shouting, brawny men.
Slowly, inch by inch, they have gone down into it,
Into its darkness, its thickness, its silence.
Slowly, irresistibly, it drew them down, sucked them down,
And they were drowned in thick, bitter, heaving mud.
Now it hides them, Oh, so many of them!
Under its smooth glistening surface it is hiding them blandly.
There is not a trace of them.
There is no mark where they went down.
The mute enormous mouth of the mud has closed over them.

This is the song of the mud,
The beautiful glistening golden mud that covers the hills like satin;
The mysterious gleaming silvery mud that is spread like enamel over the valleys.
Mud, the disguise of the war zone;
Mud, the mantle of battles;
Mud, the smooth fluid grave of our soldiers:
This is the song of the mud.


Elsewhere in that book she writes about the battle scene, as viewed from a hilltop:

From the top of the hill I looked down on the beautiful, the gorgeous, the superhuman and monstrous landscape of the superb exulting war.

There were no trees anywhere, nor any grasses or green thickets, nor any birds singing, nor any whisper or flutter of any little busy creatures.

There was no shelter for field mice or rabbits, squirrels, or men.

The earth was naked and on its naked body crawled things of iron.

It was evening. The long valley was bathed in blue shadow and through the shadow, as if swimming, I saw the iron armies moving . . .

[There is more, if you want to look, in the original poem which is in the link at DE.]

[William A. Baurle]

Vergissmeinnicht

Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing. As we came on
that day, he hit my tank with one
like the entry of a demon.

Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
the dishonoured picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht
in a copybook gothic script.

We see him almost with content,
abased, and seeming to have paid
and mocked at by his own equipment
that's hard and good when he's decayed.

But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.

— Keith Douglas

[Janice D. Soderling]

Sadly, Rupert Brooke never got a taste of the real thing. On his way to Gallipoli, he died on a hospital ship having developed sepsis from an infected mosquito bite.

Such ignoble non-combat death is a tradition that goes back to at least the Siege of Troy when Apollo sent the plague on the Achaeans because Achilles and Agamemnon wanted the same young woman as war booty.

Who sent the mosquitoes, the story doesn't tell, but had handsome, patriotic Rupert had a taste of the real thing he might have changed his poetry tune to something more Wilfred Owen-ish.

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.


ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH

-- Wilfred Owen

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 goodbyes.
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.

***

Not to forget Kipling who sums up the post-war experience.

Tommy

By Rudyard Kipling, 1892

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 behind 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 Mr Atkins," when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian roo, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fighting', 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 'im 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!

***

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

--Randall Jarrell

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.

***

God?

If you are there, bequeath a gentle snow
to blanket grass and hills and trees and us,
the weary ones who really need to know
if you are there. Bequeath a gentle snow,
and let it drift to comfort us below
these endless marble rows, victorious.
If you are there, bequeath a gentle snow
to blanket grass and hills and trees and us.

--Harvey Stanbrough "Beyond the Masks", new & selected poems.

[Marcia Karp]

Originally Posted by Janice D. Soderling

Sadly, Rupert Brooke never got a taste of the real thing. On his way to Gallipoli, he died on a hospital ship having developed sepsis from an infected mosquito bite.

Such ignoble non-combat death is a tradition that goes back to at least the Siege of Troy when Apollo sent the plague on the Achaeans because Achilles and Agamemnon wanted the same young woman as war booty.

Who sent the mosquitoes, the story doesn't tell, but had handsome, patriotic Rupert had a taste of the real thing he might have changed his poetry tune to something more Wilfred Owen-ish.

[Moderator's intervention: Marcia has agreed to my removing her remarks. She'll return later in the day to explain her position on Janice's post.]

I think it a shame for anyone's life to be judged based on incomplete information. It seems Brooke did see action and wrote the war poems afterwards. Since accounts I found are not full and vary in ways you'll see, I've included a bunch of them, bolding to draw attention to the action, with annotation and source. Michael Cantor tells me the Poetry website says RB saw no action. I have no inside information as to the best of the accounts, but am convinced he tasted the real thing and shouldn't be deprived of that recognition.

***************

It is helpful to bear in mind that Brooke had been on active service at Antwerp and wrote to a friend on November 11 1914:

“It hurts me, this war. Because I was fond of Germany. There are such good things in her, and I’d always hoped she’d get away from Prussia and the oligarchy in time. If it had been a mere war between us and them I’d have hated fighting. But I’m glad to be doing it for Belgium. That’s what breaks the heart to see and hear of. I marched through Antwerp, deserted, shelled, and burning, one night, and saw ruined houses, dead men and horses: railway-trains with their lines taken up and twisted and flung down as if a child had been playing with a toy. And the whole heaven and earth was lit up by the glare from the great lakes and rivers of burning petrol, hills and spires of flame. That was like Hell, a Dantesque Hell, terrible.”

What RB says about his action
[Friends of the Dymock Poets]

***************

Then came the War. “Well, if Armageddon’s on,” he said, I suppose one should be there.” It was a characteristic way of putting it. He obtained a commission in the Hood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division in September, and was quickly ordered on the disastrous if heroic expedition to Antwerp. Here he had his first experience of war, lying for some days in trenches shelled by the distant German guns. Then followed a strange retreat by night along roads lit by the glare of burning towns, and swarming with pitiful crowds of Belgian refugees. Yet as Mr. Walter de la Mare said of him, when he returned from Antwerp, “Ulysses himself at the end of his voyagings was not more quietly accustomed to the shocks of novelty.”

An excited account.

[Collected Poems. 1916. Rupert Brooke: A Biographical Note, By Margaret Lavington]

***************

On his return to England in June 1914 Brooke's vacillations concerning Cathleen Nesbitt were exacerbated by a developing friendship with Lady Eileen Wellesley. But the outbreak of war saved this situation and Brooke turned his romantic attention away from love towards war. He was given a commission in the Royal Naval division in September and in October was at the siege of Antwerp, but saw little action. Following this experience he wrote the five war sonnets which made him first famous, then infamous when they came to be taken as representative of the supposedly naïve patriotism of Brooke's generation. In February 1915 the division sailed for Gallipoli, but Brooke never reached any heroic apotheosis in that ill-fated campaign: he died at sea on 23 April and was buried at Skyros the same day. He is thought to have contracted septicaemia from a mosquito bite.

Little action; not none. Does the DNB count "lying for some days in trenches shelled by the distant German guns" as action? Did he really lie there?
[Dictionary of National Biography]

***************

He returned home shortly before the outbreak of World War One. He was commissioned into the Royal Naval Division and took part in the disastrous Antwerp expedition in October 1914.

In on the disaster
[BBC on RB]

***************

The war sonnets, written in Antwerp, where Brooke first experienced war, and published in New Numbers in December 1914, catapulted him to virtually worldwide eminence.

Experienced war
[Dictionary of Literary Biography]

***************

Rupert Brooke saw his only action of World War I during the defense of Antwerp, Belgium, against German invasion in early October 1914. Although aided by a stiff resistance from Antwerp's inhabitants, British troops suffered a decisive defeat in that conflict and were forced to retreat through a devastated Belgian countryside. Brooke subsequently returned to Britain to await redeployment, where he caught the flu during the training and preparation. While recovering, Brooke wrote what would become the most famous of his war sonnets, including Peace, Safety, The Dead, and The Soldier.

Action, but only in Antwerp.
[http://www.history.com/this-day-in-h...ies-in-greece]

***************

In September 1914, Churchill offered Brooke a commission in the RND, and within a month sublieutenant Brooke participated in the evacuation of Antwerp. Back in England over the Christmas holidays, Brooke wrote his famous "war sonnets" (particularly Brooke's sonnet "V. The Soldier," the sonnet that Dean Inge had read at the pulpit of St. Paul's on Easter Sunday).

In on the evacuation
[On The Times (London) obit]

***************

Inscribed on the grave is Brooke’s most famous poem, The Soldier. This was written in the last months of 1914, after his return from the fall of Antwerp. Although he had experienced the chaos of battle there, and seen the misery of the fleeing refugees, the full horror of the trenches was yet to be realised.

Battle and witness. Joined up too soon for the worst.[http://www.rupertbrookeonskyros.com/Grave.htm]

[Michael Cantor]

With all due respect, Marcia, what prompted that? The facts about Brooke's death appear correct, and a great many individuals and critics objected to his romanticism of war. What is wrong with stating: "...but had handsome, patriotic Rupert had a taste of the real thing he might have changed his poetry tune to something more Wilfred Owen-ish." War sucks, and the more poems that focus on that, and the fewer that sentimentalize the experience, the better we are.

On a related subject, I thought that Maz's In Foreign Fields (post #3), was better than either of the "biggies" it references.