In just a few days we will be taking a Monday off to have a barbeque or open the city swimming pools or some such celebration. But if the season is for celebration of the coming of summer, there is something else that it commemorates.
As you drive past the cemeteries, take a look at the flags and the flowers and remember those who have passed before. We have our day of remembrance in the spring, and it overshadows what we call "Veterans' Day" in November. But they are all of a piece and I wanted to commemorate in my own way by taking a bit of time to remind you of the horrible war that "Veterans' Day" or "Remembrance Day" or "Armistice Day" was established to honor. To commemorate it by linking to some of the poetry written by those who went through the Great War, and some who didn't make it through that War.
Many of the poets died in the War. Siegried Sassoon, an Englishman, did not. He lived to write the following very powerful poem in 1920. It has some of what we might call today PTSD, but the power of the words is in the anger and bitterness of the author. I remember the awful email a (now former) friend sent when she was trying to convince me that the war with Iraq was justified. It had some of the same call for remembering, and talked about the smell of that day in New York. But this poem, "Aftermath," is much more affecting than anything I have yet read that would serve as a call to arms. Sassoon died in 1967, at the age of 80.
HAVE you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same-and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.
Do you remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz--
The nights you watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line trench-
And dawn coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, 'Is it all going to happen again?'
Do you remember that hour of din before the attack--
And the anger, the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching back
With dying eyes and lolling heads-those ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind and gay?
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look up, and swear by the green of the spring that you'll never forget.
Sassoon encouraged the writing of Wilfred Owen, another Brit (Welsh and English parentage), who died in the last week of the war. I will offer two of his poems. The second (if you have read this far) you will probably have heard of. The first perhaps not. This is "Strange Meeting," written in 1918:
It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,-
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.
With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
"Strange friend," I said, "Here is no cause to mourn."
"None," said the other, "Save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something has been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery;
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.
I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now . . ."
Probably Owen's most famous poem is "Dulce et Decorum est" which uses the words of Horace: "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (it is sweet and seemly to die for one's country). The link I cited has a good discussion of the import and power of this phrase, which would have resonated with the British who were educated with the writings of the classical authors.
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.
I will conclude with the last, and in some ways, the most beautiful of the set. It is written by John McRae, a graduate of the University of Toronto (where I got my graduate degrees), who died of pneumonia in France in 1918, and is buried near Boulogne. I recite this to myself often when I see poppies blooming in spring gardens. Some people think of The Wizard of Oz, but I think of "In Flanders Fields." The last verse seems a bit out of place with the first two, but it was published in 1915, in the midst of the war, and a bit of a martial tone is not that unexpected.
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.
More on these authors and copies of their work:
Wilfred Owen.
Another on Wilfred Owen, which includes a poem with noted by both Owen and Sassoon.
A large archive of poetry by Siegfried Sassoon.
And John McCrae, who did indeed write more than "In Flanders Fields."