Lectora
3rd November 2011, 09:46 AM
This time of year with just a few days to go to Remembrance Sunday, is an appropriate time to read or re-read some war poetry. This year, I have a special reason for doing so. I have the onerous responsibility for leading the Remembrance service in the village where I am Reader. The vicar, who will be elsewhere, has designed the service but has left me a space of 6-7 minutes (timing before 11.00 a.m is crucial) to fill with items of my own choice. I have selected 4 war poems and asked readers from the congregation. Three of the poems are from WWI and one from WWII. I chose them to give as broad and clear an impression as I can of the horrific experiences of war.
The poems are in various collections on the internet. Just "google" the titles if you want to read them all. I start with the idealism and patriotism of Rupert Brooke, "If I should die think only this of me." This is followed by the equally famous "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Wilfrid Owen. Both he and Brooke died in the trenches. My third choice is Rudyard Kipling's "Gethsemane 1914-18". A young soldier describes his horror and fear, praying that his cup would pass:
"It didn't pass - it didn't pass-
It didn't pass from me
I drank it when we met the gas
Beyond Gethsemane"
J Bronowski was a Jew who had some terrible experiences caught up the the fighting in various place in Europe during WWII. In my final choice "Take your gun", he describes being in a city (Paris?)with the terror coming from the skies and all around him with the bombs falling and the street fighting. It could be Afghanistan today:
"The shadow flickers on the wall
like morse, like gunshot. Terror walks
the tall roofs where the snipers hawk.
He stalks you man. And man, you fall"
The poems are in various collections on the internet. Just "google" the titles if you want to read them all. I start with the idealism and patriotism of Rupert Brooke, "If I should die think only this of me." This is followed by the equally famous "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Wilfrid Owen. Both he and Brooke died in the trenches. My third choice is Rudyard Kipling's "Gethsemane 1914-18". A young soldier describes his horror and fear, praying that his cup would pass:
"It didn't pass - it didn't pass-
It didn't pass from me
I drank it when we met the gas
Beyond Gethsemane"
J Bronowski was a Jew who had some terrible experiences caught up the the fighting in various place in Europe during WWII. In my final choice "Take your gun", he describes being in a city (Paris?)with the terror coming from the skies and all around him with the bombs falling and the street fighting. It could be Afghanistan today:
"The shadow flickers on the wall
like morse, like gunshot. Terror walks
the tall roofs where the snipers hawk.
He stalks you man. And man, you fall"