For Veterans’ Day

John McCrae is one of the top poets for WWI. I’ve shared his Disarmament below.

Poem of the Week

Diaarmament

By John McCrae

One spake amid the nations, “Let us cease
From darkening with strife the fair World’s light,
We who are great in war be great in peace.
No longer let us plead the cause by might.”

But from a million British graves took birth
A silent voice — the million spake as one —
“If ye have righted all the wrongs of earth
Lay by the sword! Its work and ours is done.”

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Poem of the Week

It Was the War of the Trenches

A gritty look at WWI, Jacques Tardi’s It was the War of the Trenches shows the dark side of World War I from the French side. Most of characters are jaded, egotistical schemers, who’re willing to break the rules. They’d inflict themselves with wounds to avoid fighting. They’d collude with the enemy if it meant survival. They would shoot women and children if that was the order given.

Nonetheless, I felt bad when a man would die, even though that same man would desert his comrades or cheat them one way or another. It’s an interesting angle to a historical book.

Well, it’s not exactly a historical book. In the forward Tardi says:

“This is not the history of the First World War told in comics form, but a non-chronological sequence of situations, lived by men who have been jerked around and dragged through the mud, clearly unhappy to find themselves in this place, whose only wish is to stay alive for just one more hour…”

The drawings convey the horror and violence of the war, but I must remind myself and you to realize that this book is just one perspective on the war. It’s definitely worth reading, though I don’t think children under 15 should read it (maybe older still). But also, we should read and view other more historical books or films to really understand “The War to End All Wars.”

Poem of the Week, III

Another Wilfred Owen poem on WWI.

Poem of the Week, II – Strange Meeting

Strange Meeting

By Wilfred Owen

It seemed that out of 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 that 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 had 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. . . .’

‘Strange Meeting’ was written in early 1918.

Veterans, We Thank You

At church today, we had a special closing prayer for veterans. I am something of a pacifist, but realize we need a military. I was chagrined that only one veteran was at mass.

Now it’s not a huge congregation. But one reason the number was tiny was that few people in my neck of the woods served.

Poem of the Week, I

Iron

a WWI poem
By Carl Sandburg

GUNS,
Long, steel guns,
Pointed from the war ships
In the name of the war god.
Straight, shining, polished guns,
Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,
Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,
Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,
Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties.

Shovels,
Broad, iron shovels,
Scooping out oblong vaults,
Loosening turf and leveling sod.

I ask you
To witness–
The shovel is brother to the gun.

Remembering . . .

All our veterans.

Sepia Saturday

This week’s Sepia Saturday honors WWI veterans and I thought I would find and share photos of the war itself, not the memorials themselves.  Here’s what I found.

Source: State Library of NSW, 1918

N.B. One commenter on Flickr commenter on Flickr said that this trench (above) didn’t look authentic.

Source: State Library of NSW, 1918

Source: State Library of NSW, Flickr Commons, 1918

Battle of Menin Road. I suppose this was after the battle.

Internet Archives, Flickr Commons 1918

Belgian War Nurse in Belgium