{"id":2556,"date":"2016-11-27T18:08:04","date_gmt":"2016-11-27T18:08:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/english.lycee.nl\/?page_id=2556"},"modified":"2016-11-27T18:15:13","modified_gmt":"2016-11-27T18:15:13","slug":"2556-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/?page_id=2556","title":{"rendered":"FAMOUS WAR POEMS"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Flanders Fields, by John McRae<\/strong><\/p>\n

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In Flanders fields the poppies blow
\nBetween the crosses, row on row,
\nThat mark our place; and in the sky
\nThe larks, still bravely singing, fly
\nScarce heard amid the guns below.<\/p>\n

We are the Dead. Short days ago
\nWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
\nLoved and were loved, and now we lie
\nIn Flanders fields.<\/p>\n

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
\nTo you from failing hands we throw
\nThe torch; be yours to hold it high.
\nIf ye break faith with us who die
\nWe shall not sleep, though poppies grow
\nIn Flanders fields.<\/p>\n

The Soldier, by Rupert Brooke<\/strong><\/h5>\n

If I should die, think only this of me:
\nThat there\u2019s some corner of a foreign field
\nThat is forever England. There shall be
\nIn that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
\nA dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
\nGave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
\nA body of England\u2019s, breathing English air,
\nWashed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.
\nAnd think, this heart, all evil shed away,
\nA pulse in the eternal mind, no less
\nGives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
\nHer sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
\nAnd laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
\nIn hearts at peace, under an English heaven.<\/p>\n

My Boy Jack, by Rudyard Kipling<\/strong><\/h5>\n

“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
\nNot this tide.
\n“When d\u2019you think that he\u2019ll come back?”
\nNot with this wind blowing, and this tide.<\/p>\n

“Has any one else had word of him?”
\nNot this tide.
\nFor what is sunk will hardly swim,
\nNot with this wind blowing, and this tide.<\/p>\n

“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
\nNone this tide,
\nNor any tide,
\nExcept he did not shame his kind \u2014
\nNot even with that wind blowing, and that tide.<\/p>\n

Then hold your head up all the more,
\nThis tide,
\nAnd every tide;
\nBecause he was the son you bore,
\nAnd gave to that wind blowing and that tide!<\/p>\n

The Cenotaph, by Charlotte Mew<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Not yet will those measureless fields be green again
\nWhere only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed;
\nThere is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain,
\nThough for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread.
\nBut here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of an inward sword have more slowly bled,
\nWe shall build the Cenotaph: Victory, winged, with Peace, winged too, at the column’s head.
\nAnd over the stairway, at the foot – oh! here, leave desolate, passionate hands to spread
\nViolets, roses, and laurel with the small sweet twinkling country things
\nSpeaking so wistfully of other Springs
\nFrom the little gardens of little places where son or sweetheart was born and bred.
\nIn splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers
\nTo lovers – to mothers
\nHere, too, lies he:
\nUnder the purple, the green, the red,
\nIt is all young life: it must break some women’s hearts to see
\nSuch a brave, gay coverlet to such a bed!
\nOnly, when all is done and said,
\nGod is not mocked and neither are the dead.
\nFor this will stand in our Market-place –
\nWho’ll sell, who’ll buy
\n(Will you or I
\nLie each to each with the better grace)?
\nWhile looking into every busy whore’s and huckster’s face
\nAs they drive their bargains, is the Face
\nOf God: and some young, piteous, murdered face.<\/p>\n

To his love, by Ivor Gurney<\/strong><\/h5>\n

He\u2019s gone, and all our plans
\nAre useless indeed.
\nWe\u2019ll walk no more on Cotswolds
\nWhere the sheep feed
\nQuietly and take no heed.<\/p>\n

His body that was so quick
\nIs not as you
\nKnew it, on Severn River
\nUnder the blue
\nDriving our small boat through.<\/p>\n

You would not know him now\u2026
\nBut still he died
\nNobly, so cover him over
\nWith violets of pride
\nPurple from Severn side.<\/p>\n

Cover him, cover him soon!
\nAnd with thick-set
\nMasses of memoried flowers-
\nHide that red wet
\nThing I must somehow forget.<\/p>\n

To Germany, by Charles Hamilton Sorley<\/strong><\/h5>\n

You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed,
\nAnd no man claimed the conquest of your land.
\nBut gropers both through fields of thought confined
\nWe stumble and we do not understand.
\nYou only saw your future bigly planned,
\nAnd we, the tapering paths of our own mind,
\nAnd in each others dearest ways we stand,
\nAnd hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind.<\/p>\n

When it is peace, then we may view again
\nWith new won eyes each other’s truer form
\nAnd\u00a0wonder.\u00a0Grown more loving kind and warm
\nWe’ll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain,
\nWhen it is peace. But until peace, the storm,
\nThe darkness and the thunder and the rain.<\/p>\n

Break of Day in the Trenches, by Isaac Rosenberg<\/h5>\n

The darkness crumbles away.
\nIt is the same old druid Time as ever,
\nOnly a live thing leaps my hand,
\nA queer sardonic rat,
\nAs I pull the parapet\u2019s poppy
\nTo stick behind my ear.
\nDroll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
\nYour cosmopolitan sympathies.
\nNow you have touched this English hand
\nYou will do the same to a German
\nSoon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
\nTo cross the sleeping green between.
\nIt seems you inwardly grin as you pass
\nStrong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
\nLess chanced than you for life,
\nBonds to the whims of murder,
\nSprawled in the bowels of the earth,
\nThe torn fields of France.
\nWhat do you see in our eyes
\nAt the shrieking iron and flame
\nHurled through still heavens?
\nWhat quaver \u2014 what heart aghast?
\nPoppies whose roots are in man\u2019s veins
\nDrop, and are ever dropping;
\nBut mine in my ear is safe \u2014
\nJust a little white with the dust.<\/p>\n

Lights Out, by Edward Thomas<\/strong><\/h5>\n

I have come to the borders of sleep,
\nThe unfathomable deep
\nForest where all must lose
\nTheir way, however straight,
\nOr winding, soon or late;
\nThey cannot choose.<\/p>\n

Many a road and track
\nThat, since the dawn\u2019s first crack,
\nUp to the forest brink,
\nDeceived the travellers,
\nSuddenly now blurs,
\nAnd in they sink.<\/p>\n

Here love ends,
\nDespair, ambition ends;
\nAll pleasure and all trouble,
\nAlthough most sweet or bitter,
\nHere ends in sleep that is sweeter
\nThan tasks most noble.<\/p>\n

There is not any book
\nOr face of dearest look
\nThat I would not turn from now
\nTo go into the unknown
\nI must enter and leave, alone,
\nI know not how.<\/p>\n

The tall forest towers;
\nIts cloudy foliage lowers
\nAhead, shelf above shelf;
\nIts silence I hear and obey
\nThat I may lose my way
\nAnd myself.<\/p>\n

Here dead we lie, by A. E. Housman<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Here dead we lie
\nBecause we did not choose
\nTo live and shame the land
\nFrom which we sprung.<\/p>\n

Life, to be sure,
\nIs nothing much to lose,
\nBut young men think it is,
\nAnd we were young.<\/p>\n

June, 1915 by Charlotte Mew<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Who thinks of June’s first rose today?
\nOnly some child, perhaps, with shining eyes and
\nrough bright hair will reach it down.
\nIn a green sunny lane, to us almost as far away
\nAs are the fearless stars from these veiled lamps of town.
\nWhat’s little June to a great broken world with eyes gone dim
\nFrom too much looking on the face of grief, the face of dread?
\nOr what’s the broken world to June and him
\nOf the small eager hand, the shining eyes, the rough bright head?<\/p>\n

Perhaps, by Vera Brittain<\/strong><\/h5>\n

(Dedicated to her fiance Roland Aubrey Leighton, who was killed at the age of 20 by a sniper\u00a0in 1915, four months after she had accepted his marriage proposal)<\/p>\n

Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,
\nAnd I shall see that still the skies are blue,
\nAnd feel once more I do not live in vain,
\nAlthough bereft of You.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet
\nWill make the sunny hours of spring seem gay,
\nAnd I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet,
\nThough You have passed away.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright,
\nAnd crimson roses once again be fair,
\nAnd autumn harvest fields a rich delight,
\nAlthough You are not there.<\/p>\n

Perhaps some day I shall not shrink in pain
\nTo see the passing of the dying year,
\nAnd listen to Christmas songs again,
\nAlthough You cannot hear.<\/p>\n

But though kind Time may many joys renew,
\nThere is one greatest joy I shall not know
\nAgain, because my heart for loss of You
\nWas broken, long ago.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Flanders Fields, by John McRae 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 wereContinue reading<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2556","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2556"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2565,"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2556\/revisions\/2565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrglackin.eu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}