As We Commemorate The 90th

[Mid A 15]

Anniversary of Armistice Day I thought it appropiate to post a poem by our own Edmund Blunden.

Others may also wish to also post War Poems today.

Preparations For Victory (1918)

My soul, dread not the pestilence that hags
The valley; flinch not you, my body young.
At these great shouting smokes and snarling jags
Of fiery iron; as yet may not be flung
The dice that claims you. Manly move among
These ruins, and what you must do, do well;
Look, here are gardens, there mossed boughs are hung
With apples who bright cheeks none might excel,
And there's a house as yet unshattered by a shell.

"I'll do my best," the soul makes sad reply,
"And I will mark the yet unmurdered tree,
The tokens of dear homes that court the eye,
And yet I see them not as I would see.
Hovering between, a ghostly enemy.
Sickens the light, and poisoned, withered, wan,
The least defiled turns desperate to me."
The body, poor unpitied Caliban,
Parches and sweats and grunts to win the name of Man.

Days or eternities like swelling waves
Surge on, and still we drudge in this dark maze;
The bombs and coils and cans by strings of slaves
Are borne to serve the coming day of days;
Pale sleep in slimy cellars scarce allays
With its brief blank the burden. Look, we lose;
The sky is gone, the lightless, drenching haze
Of rainstorms chills the bone; earth, air are foes,
The black fiend leaps brick-red as life's last picture goes.

[Katharine]

I was sent this, and found it on an ANZAC site but don't know the origin:

“The inquisitive mind of a child”

Why are they selling poppies, Mummy?
Selling poppies in town today.
The poppies, child, are flowers of love.
For the men who marched away.

But why have they chosen a poppy, Mummy?
Why not a beautiful rose?
Because my child, men fought and died
In the fields where the poppies grow.

But why are the poppies so red, Mummy?
Why are the poppies so red?
Red is the colour of blood, my child.
The blood that our soldiers shed.

The heart of the poppy is black, Mummy.
Why does it have to be black?
Black, my child, is the symbol of grief.
For the men who never came back.

But why, Mummy are you crying so?
Your tears are giving you pain.
My tears are my fears for you my child.
For the world is forgetting again.

[Vièr Bliu]

One of mine (written 1999):

Les Pavots
Lé onze dé Novembre

Ches rouoges clios d'pavots - trempés d'flieurs
Si rouoges, si sanglieuses mais si néthes;
I' dansent dans la brise... des couleurs
Sont à sîngnaler nos mémouaithes...

Saluons-les... Nos êtèrnelles
Pliantées auve amour et pitchi:
Les cheins tchi montîtent lus êtchelles,
Les cheins tchi mithîtent lus fûsis,

Tithant au ciel - un touffet d'flieurs,
Mouontrant lus faches, des rouoges héros,
Nos chuchotant lus rithes, lus plieurs,
Lus fielles, lus réchinnes, lus pavots.