Remembrance Day 2009

Poetry written soon after the end of war by those who fought is always the most poignant, and sometimes most angry.

Siegfried Sassoon (September 8, 1886 – September 1, 1967) a decorated soldier during WWI, is one of the celebrated English war poets. Disturbed by the death, destruction, and suffering in which he partook, he developed strong anti-war feelings reflected in many of his works.


Aftermath

by Siegfried Sassoon (1919)

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.

~

Quotes:

You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.”
--Albert Einstein

In war, there are no unwounded soldiers.
--José Narosky

We make war that we may live in peace.
--Aristotle, 384 BC

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy

War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
--Bertrand Russell

Nations have recently been led to borrow billions for war; no nation has ever borrowed largely for education. Probably, no nation is rich enough to pay for both war and civilization. We must make our choice; we cannot have both.
--Abraham Flexner

I recoil with horror at the ferociousness of man. Will nations never devise a more rational umpire of differences than force? Are there no means of coercing injustice more gratifying to our nature than a waste of the blood of thousands and of the labor of millions of our fellow creatures?
--Thomas Jefferson

Draft beer, not people.
--Attributed to Bob Dylan


--Cat