Written by
Walt Whitman |
1
A SONG of the good green grass!
A song no more of the city streets;
A song of farms—a song of the soil of fields.
A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork;
A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk’d maize.
2
For the lands, and for these passionate days, and for myself,
Now I awhile return to thee, O soil of Autumn fields,
Reclining on thy breast, giving myself to thee,
Answering the pulses of thy sane and equable heart,
Tuning a verse for thee.
O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice!
O harvest of my lands! O boundless summer growths!
O lavish, brown, parturient earth! O infinite, teeming womb!
A verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee.
3
Ever upon this stage,
Is acted God’s calm, annual drama,
Gorgeous processions, songs of birds,
Sunrise, that fullest feeds and freshens most the soul,
The heaving sea, the waves upon the shore, the musical, strong waves,
The woods, the stalwart trees, the slender, tapering trees,
The flowers, the grass, the lilliput, countless armies of the grass,
The heat, the showers, the measureless pasturages,
The scenery of the snows, the winds’ free orchestra,
The stretching, light-hung roof of clouds—the clear cerulean, and the bulging,
silvery
fringes,
The high dilating stars, the placid, beckoning stars,
The moving flocks and herds, the plains and emerald meadows,
The shows of all the varied lands, and all the growths and products.
4
Fecund America! To-day,
Thou art all over set in births and joys!
Thou groan’st with riches! thy wealth clothes thee as with a swathing garment!
Thou laughest loud with ache of great possessions!
A myriad-twining life, like interlacing vines, binds all thy vast demesne!
As some huge ship, freighted to water’s edge, thou ridest into port!
As rain falls from the heaven, and vapors rise from earth, so have the precious values
fallen
upon thee, and risen out of thee!
Thou envy of the globe! thou miracle!
Thou, bathed, choked, swimming in plenty!
Thou lucky Mistress of the tranquil barns!
Thou Prairie Dame that sittest in the middle, and lookest out upon thy world, and lookest
East,
and lookest West!
Dispensatress, that by a word givest a thousand miles—that giv’st a million
farms,
and missest nothing!
Thou All-Acceptress—thou Hospitable—(thou only art hospitable, as God is
hospitable.
)
5
When late I sang, sad was my voice;
Sad were the shows around me, with deafening noises of hatred, and smoke of conflict;
In the midst of the armies, the Heroes, I stood,
Or pass’d with slow step through the wounded and dying.
But now I sing not War,
Nor the measur’d march of soldiers, nor the tents of camps,
Nor the regiments hastily coming up, deploying in line of battle.
No more the dead and wounded;
No more the sad, unnatural shows of War.
Ask’d room those flush’d immortal ranks? the first forth-stepping armies?
Ask room, alas, the ghastly ranks—the armies dread that follow’d.
6
(Pass—pass, ye proud brigades!
So handsome, dress’d in blue—with your tramping, sinewy legs;
With your shoulders young and strong—with your knapsacks and your muskets;
—How elate I stood and watch’d you, where, starting off, you march’d!
Pass;—then rattle, drums, again!
Scream, you steamers on the river, out of whistles loud and shrill, your salutes!
For an army heaves in sight—O another gathering army!
Swarming, trailing on the rear—O you dread, accruing army!
O you regiments so piteous, with your mortal diarrhoea! with your fever!
O my land’s maimed darlings! with the plenteous bloody bandage and the crutch!
Lo! your pallid army follow’d!)
7
But on these days of brightness,
On the far-stretching beauteous landscape, the roads and lanes, the high-piled
farm-wagons, and
the fruits and barns,
Shall the dead intrude?
Ah, the dead to me mar not—they fit well in Nature;
They fit very well in the landscape, under the trees and grass,
And along the edge of the sky, in the horizon’s far margin.
Nor do I forget you, departed;
Nor in winter or summer, my lost ones;
But most, in the open air, as now, when my soul is rapt and at peace—like pleasing
phantoms,
Your dear memories, rising, glide silently by me.
8
I saw the day, the return of the Heroes;
(Yet the Heroes never surpass’d, shall never return;
Them, that day, I saw not.
)
I saw the interminable Corps—I saw the processions of armies,
I saw them approaching, defiling by, with divisions,
Streaming northward, their work done, camping awhile in clusters of mighty camps.
No holiday soldiers!—youthful, yet veterans;
Worn, swart, handsome, strong, of the stock of homestead and workshop,
Harden’d of many a long campaign and sweaty march,
Inured on many a hard-fought, bloody field.
9
A pause—the armies wait;
A million flush’d, embattled conquerors wait;
The world, too, waits—then, soft as breaking night, and sure as dawn,
They melt—they disappear.
Exult, indeed, O lands! victorious lands!
Not there your victory, on those red, shuddering fields;
But here and hence your victory.
Melt, melt away, ye armies! disperse, ye blue-clad soldiers!
Resolve ye back again—give up, for good, your deadly arms;
Other the arms, the fields henceforth for you, or South or North, or East or West,
With saner wars—sweet wars—life-giving wars.
10
Loud, O my throat, and clear, O soul!
The season of thanks, and the voice of full-yielding;
The chant of joy and power for boundless fertility.
All till’d and untill’d fields expand before me;
I see the true arenas of my race—or first, or last,
Man’s innocent and strong arenas.
I see the Heroes at other toils;
I see, well-wielded in their hands, the better weapons.
11
I see where America, Mother of All,
Well-pleased, with full-spanning eye, gazes forth, dwells long,
And counts the varied gathering of the products.
Busy the far, the sunlit panorama;
Prairie, orchard, and yellow grain of the North,
Cotton and rice of the South, and Louisianian cane;
Open, unseeded fallows, rich fields of clover and timothy,
Kine and horses feeding, and droves of sheep and swine,
And many a stately river flowing, and many a jocund brook,
And healthy uplands with their herby-perfumed breezes,
And the good green grass—that delicate miracle, the ever-recurring grass.
12
Toil on, Heroes! harvest the products!
Not alone on those warlike fields, the Mother of All,
With dilated form and lambent eyes, watch’d you.
Toil on, Heroes! toil well! Handle the weapons well!
The Mother of All—yet here, as ever, she watches you.
Well-pleased, America, thou beholdest,
Over the fields of the West, those crawling monsters,
The human-divine inventions, the labor-saving implements:
Beholdest, moving in every direction, imbued as with life, the revolving hay-rakes,
The steam-power reaping-machines, and the horse-power machines,
The engines, thrashers of grain, and cleaners of grain, well separating the straw—the
nimble work of the patent pitch-fork;
Beholdest the newer saw-mill, the southern cotton-gin, and the rice-cleanser.
Beneath thy look, O Maternal,
With these, and else, and with their own strong hands, the Heroes harvest.
All gather, and all harvest;
(Yet but for thee, O Powerful! not a scythe might swing, as now, in security;
Not a maize-stalk dangle, as now, its silken tassels in peace.
)
13
Under Thee only they harvest—even but a wisp of hay, under thy great face, only;
Harvest the wheat of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin—every barbed spear, under thee;
Harvest the maize of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee—each ear in its light-green
sheath,
Gather the hay to its myriad mows, in the odorous, tranquil barns,
Oats to their bins—the white potato, the buckwheat of Michigan, to theirs;
Gather the cotton in Mississippi or Alabama—dig and hoard the golden, the sweet
potato of
Georgia and the Carolinas,
Clip the wool of California or Pennsylvania,
Cut the flax in the Middle States, or hemp, or tobacco in the Borders,
Pick the pea and the bean, or pull apples from the trees, or bunches of grapes from the
vines,
Or aught that ripens in all These States, or North or South,
Under the beaming sun, and under Thee.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
You want me to tell you a story, a yarn of the firin' line,
Of our thin red kharki 'eroes, out there where the bullets whine;
Out there where the bombs are bustin',
and the cannons like 'ell-doors slam --
Just order another drink, boys, and I'll tell you of Soulful Sam.
Oh, Sam, he was never 'ilarious, though I've 'ad some mates as was wus;
He 'adn't C.
B.
on his programme, he never was known to cuss.
For a card or a skirt or a beer-mug he 'adn't a friendly word;
But when it came down to Scriptures, say! Wasn't he just a bird!
He always 'ad tracts in his pocket, the which he would haste to present,
And though the fellers would use them in ways that they never was meant,
I used to read 'em religious, and frequent I've been impressed
By some of them bundles of 'oly dope he carried around in his vest.
For I -- and oh, 'ow I shudder at the 'orror the word conveys!
'Ave been -- let me whisper it 'oarsely -- a gambler 'alf of me days;
A gambler, you 'ear -- a gambler.
It makes me wishful to weep,
And yet 'ow it's true, my brethren! -- I'd rather gamble than sleep.
I've gambled the 'ole world over, from Monte Carlo to Maine;
From Dawson City to Dover, from San Francisco to Spain.
Cards! They 'ave been me ruin.
They've taken me pride and me pelf,
And when I'd no one to play with -- why, I'd go and I'd play by meself.
And Sam 'e would sit and watch me, as I shuffled a greasy deck,
And 'e'd say: "You're bound to Perdition,"
And I'd answer: "Git off me neck!"
And that's 'ow we came to get friendly, though built on a different plan,
Me wot's a desprite gambler, 'im sich a good young man.
But on to me tale.
Just imagine .
.
.
Darkness! The battle-front!
The furious 'Uns attackin'! Us ones a-bearin' the brunt!
Me crouchin' be'ind a sandbag, tryin' 'ard to keep calm,
When I 'ears someone singin' a 'ymn toon; be'old! it is Soulful Sam.
Yes; right in the crash of the combat, in the fury of flash and flame,
'E was shootin' and singin' serenely as if 'e enjoyed the same.
And there in the 'eat of the battle, as the 'ordes of demons attacked,
He dipped down into 'is tunic, and 'e 'anded me out a tract.
Then a star-shell flared, and I read it: Oh, Flee From the Wrath to Come!
Nice cheerful subject, I tell yer, when you're 'earin' the bullets 'um.
And before I 'ad time to thank 'im, just one of them bits of lead
Comes slingin' along in a 'urry, and it 'its my partner.
.
.
.
Dead?
No, siree! not by a long sight! For it plugged 'im 'ard on the chest,
Just where 'e'd tracts for a army corps stowed away in 'is vest.
On its mission of death that bullet 'ustled along, and it caved
A 'ole in them tracts to 'is 'ide, boys -- but the life o' me pal was saved.
And there as 'e showed me in triumph, and 'orror was chokin' me breath,
On came another bullet on its 'orrible mission of death;
On through the night it cavorted, seekin' its 'aven of rest,
And it zipped through a crack in the sandbags, and it wolloped me bang on the breast.
Was I killed, do you ask? Oh no, boys.
Why am I sittin' 'ere
Gazin' with mournful vision at a mug long empty of beer?
With a throat as dry as a -- oh, thanky! I don't much mind if I do.
Beer with a dash of 'ollands, that's my particular brew.
Yes, that was a terrible moment.
It 'ammered me 'ard o'er the 'eart;
It bowled me down like a nine-pin, and I looked for the gore to start;
And I saw in the flash of a moment, in that thunder of hate and strife,
Me wretched past like a pitchur -- the sins of a gambler's life.
For I 'ad no tracts to save me, to thwart that mad missile's doom;
I 'ad no pious pamphlets to 'elp me to cheat the tomb;
I 'ad no 'oly leaflets to baffle a bullet's aim;
I'd only -- a deck of cards, boys, but .
.
.
it seemed to do just the same.
|
Written by
John Betjeman |
Let me take this other glove off
As the vox humana swells,
And the beauteous fields of Eden
Bask beneath the Abbey bells.
Here, where England's statesmen lie,
Listen to a lady's cry.
Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans,
Spare their women for Thy Sake,
And if that is not too easy
We will pardon Thy Mistake.
But, gracious Lord, whate'er shall be,
Don't let anyone bomb me.
Keep our Empire undismembered
Guide our Forces by Thy Hand,
Gallant blacks from far Jamaica,
Honduras and Togoland;
Protect them Lord in all their fights,
And, even more, protect the whites.
Think of what our Nation stands for,
Books from Boots' and country lanes,
Free speech, free passes, class distinction,
Democracy and proper drains.
Lord, put beneath Thy special care
One-eighty-nine Cadogan Square.
Although dear Lord I am a sinner,
I have done no major crime;
Now I'll come to Evening Service
Whensoever I have the time.
So, Lord, reserve for me a crown,
And do not let my shares go down.
I will labour for Thy Kingdom,
Help our lads to win the war,
Send white feathers to the cowards
Join the Women's Army Corps,
Then wash the steps around Thy Throne
In the Eternal Safety Zone.
Now I feel a little better,
What a treat to hear Thy Word,
Where the bones of leading statesmen
Have so often been interr'd.
And now, dear Lord, I cannot wait
Because I have a luncheon date.
|
Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
When the Waters were dried an' the Earth did appear,
("It's all one," says the Sapper),
The Lord He created the Engineer,
Her Majesty's Royal Engineer,
With the rank and pay of a Sapper!
When the Flood come along for an extra monsoon,
'Twas Noah constructed the first pontoon
To the plans of Her Majesty's, etc.
But after fatigue in the wet an' the sun,
Old Noah got drunk, which he wouldn't ha' done
If he'd trained with, etc.
When the Tower o' Babel had mixed up men's bat,
Some clever civilian was managing that,
An' none of, etc.
When the Jews had a fight at the foot of a hill,
Young Joshua ordered the sun to stand still,
For he was a Captain of Engineers, etc.
When the Children of Israel made bricks without straw,
They were learnin' the regular work of our Corps,
The work of, etc.
For ever since then, if a war they would wage,
Behold us a-shinin' on history's page --
First page for, etc.
We lay down their sidings an' help 'em entrain,
An' we sweep up their mess through the bloomin' campaign,
In the style of, etc.
They send us in front with a fuse an' a mine
To blow up the gates that are rushed by the Line,
But bent by, etc.
They send us behind with a pick an' a spade,
To dig for the guns of a bullock-brigade
Which has asked for, etc.
We work under escort in trousers and shirt,
An' the heathen they plug us tail-up in the dirt,
Annoying, etc.
We blast out the rock an' we shovel the mud,
We make 'em good roads an' -- they roll down the khud,
Reporting, etc.
We make 'em their bridges, their wells, an' their huts,
An' the telegraph-wire the enemy cuts,
An' it's blamed on, etc.
An' when we return, an' from war we would cease,
They grudge us adornin' the billets of peace,
Which are kept for, etc.
We build 'em nice barracks -- they swear they are bad,
That our Colonels are Methodist, married or mad,
Insultin', etc.
They haven't no manners nor gratitude too,
For the more that we help 'em, the less will they do,
But mock at, etc.
Now the Line's but a man with a gun in his hand,
An' Cavalry's only what horses can stand,
When helped by, etc.
Artillery moves by the leave o' the ground,
But we are the men that do something all round,
For we are, etc.
I have stated it plain, an' my argument's thus
("It's all one," says the Sapper),
There's only one Corps which is perfect -- that's us;
An' they call us Her Majesty's Engineers,
Her Majesty's Royal Engineers,
With the rank and pay of a Sapper!
|
Written by
Thomas Hardy |
Good Father!… ’Twas an eve in middle June,
And war was waged anew
By great Napoleon, who for years had strewn
Men’s bones all Europe through.
Three nights ere this, with columned corps he’d crossed
The Sambre at Charleroi,
To move on Brussels, where the English host
Dallied in Parc and Bois.
The yestertide we’d heard the gloomy gun
Growl through the long-sunned day
From Quatre-Bras and Ligny; till the dun
Twilight suppressed the fray;
Albeit therein—as lated tongues bespoke—
Brunswick’s high heart was drained,
And Prussia’s Line and Landwehr, though unbroke,
Stood cornered and constrained.
And at next noon-time Grouchy slowly passed
With thirty thousand men:
We hoped thenceforth no army, small or vast,
Would trouble us again.
My hut lay deeply in a vale recessed,
And never a soul seemed nigh
When, reassured at length, we went to rest—
My children, wife, and I.
But what was this that broke our humble ease?
What noise, above the rain,
Above the dripping of the poplar trees
That smote along the pane?
—A call of mastery, bidding me arise,
Compelled me to the door,
At which a horseman stood in martial guise—
Splashed—sweating from every pore.
Had I seen Grouchy? Yes? Which track took he?
Could I lead thither on?—
Fulfilment would ensure gold pieces three,
Perchance more gifts anon.
“I bear the Emperor’s mandate,” then he said,
“Charging the Marshal straight
To strike between the double host ahead
Ere they co-operate,
“Engaging Bl?cher till the Emperor put
Lord Wellington to flight,
And next the Prussians.
This to set afoot
Is my emprise to-night.
”
I joined him in the mist; but, pausing, sought
To estimate his say,
Grouchy had made for Wavre; and yet, on thought,
I did not lead that way.
I mused: “If Grouchy thus instructed be,
The clash comes sheer hereon;
My farm is stript.
While, as for pieces three,
Money the French have none.
“Grouchy unwarned, moreo’er, the English win,
And mine is left to me—
They buy, not borrow.
”—Hence did I begin
To lead him treacherously.
By Joidoigne, near to east, as we ondrew,
Dawn pierced the humid air;
And eastward faced I with him, though I knew
Never marched Grouchy there.
Near Ottignies we passed, across the Dyle
(Lim’lette left far aside),
And thence direct toward Pervez and Noville
Through green grain, till he cried:
“I doubt thy conduct, man! no track is here
I doubt they gag?d word!”
Thereat he scowled on me, and pranced me near,
And pricked me with his sword.
“Nay, Captain, hold! We skirt, not trace the course
Of Grouchy,” said I then:
“As we go, yonder went he, with his force
Of thirty thousand men.
”
—At length noon nighed, when west, from Saint-John’s-Mound,
A hoarse artillery boomed,
And from Saint-Lambert’s upland, chapel-crowned,
The Prussian squadrons loomed.
Then to the wayless wet gray ground he leapt;
“My mission fails!” he cried;
“Too late for Grouchy now to intercept,
For, peasant, you have lied!”
He turned to pistol me.
I sprang, and drew
The sabre from his flank,
And ’twixt his nape and shoulder, ere he knew,
I struck, and dead he sank.
I hid him deep in nodding rye and oat—
His shroud green stalks and loam;
His requiem the corn-blade’s husky note—
And then I hastened home….
—Two armies writhe in coils of red and blue,
And brass and iron clang
From Goumont, past the front of Waterloo,
To Pap’lotte and Smohain.
The Guard Imperial wavered on the height;
The Emperor’s face grew glum;
“I sent,” he said, “to Grouchy yesternight,
And yet he does not come!”
’Twas then, Good Father, that the French espied,
Streaking the summer land,
The men of Bl?cher.
But the Emperor cried,
“Grouchy is now at hand!”
And meanwhile Vand’leur, Vivian, Maitland, Kempt,
Met d’Erlon, Friant, Ney;
But Grouchy—mis-sent, blamed, yet blame-exempt—
Grouchy was far away.
Be even, slain or struck, Michel the strong,
Bold Travers, Dnop, Delord,
Smart Guyot, Reil-le, l’Heriter, Friant.
Scattered that champaign o’er.
Fallen likewise wronged Duhesme, and skilled Lobau
Did that red sunset see;
Colbert, Legros, Blancard!… And of the foe
Picton and Ponsonby;
With Gordon, Canning, Blackman, Ompteda,
L’Estrange, Delancey, Packe,
Grose, D’Oyly, Stables, Morice, Howard, Hay,
Von Schwerin, Watzdorf, Boek,
Smith, Phelips, Fuller, Lind, and Battersby,
And hosts of ranksmen round…
Memorials linger yet to speak to thee
Of those that bit the ground!
The Guards’ last column yielded; dykes of dead
Lay between vale and ridge,
As, thinned yet closing, faint yet fierce, they sped
In packs to Genappe Bridge.
Safe was my stock; my capple cow unslain;
Intact each cock and hen;
But Grouchy far at Wavre all day had lain,
And thirty thousand men.
O Saints, had I but lost my earing corn
And saved the cause once prized!
O Saints, why such false witness had I borne
When late I’d sympathized!…
So, now, being old, my children eye askance
My slowly dwindling store,
And crave my mite; till, worn with tarriance,
I care for life no more.
To Almighty God henceforth I stand confessed,
And Virgin-Saint Marie;
O Michael, John, and Holy Ones in rest,
Entreat the Lord for me!
|
Written by
Charles Baudelaire |
La sottise, l'erreur, le péché, la lésine,
Occupent nos esprits et travaillent nos corps,
Et nous alimentons nos aimables remords,
Comme les mendiants nourrissent leur vermine.
Nos péchés sont têtus, nos repentirs sont lâches;
Nous nous faisons payer grassement nos aveux,
Et nous rentrons gaiement dans le chemin bourbeux,
Croyant par de vils pleurs laver toutes nos taches.
Sur l'oreiller du mal c'est Satan Trismégiste
Qui berce longuement notre esprit enchanté,
Et le riche métal de notre volonté
Est tout vaporisé par ce savant chimiste.
C'est le Diable qui tient les fils qui nous remuent!
Aux objets répugnants nous trouvons des appas;
Chaque jour vers l'Enfer nous descendons d'un pas,
Sans horreur, à travers des ténèbres qui puent.
Ainsi qu'un débauché pauvre qui baise et mange
Le sein martyrisé d'une antique catin,
Nous volons au passage un plaisir clandestin
Que nous pressons bien fort comme une vieille orange.
Serré, fourmillant comme un million d'helminthes,
Dans nos cerveaux ribote un peuple de démons,
Et quand nous respirons, la Mort dans nos poumons
Descend, fleuve invisible, avec de sourdes plaintes.
Si le viol, le poison, le poignard, l'incendie,
N'ont pas encore brodé de leurs plaisants dessins
Le canevas banal de nos piteux destins,
C'est que notre âme, hélas! n'est pas assez hardie.
Mais parmi les chacals, les panthères, les lices,
Les singes, les scorpions, les vautours, les serpents,
Les monstres glapissants, hurlants, grognants, rampants,
Dans la ménagerie infâme de nos vices,
Il en est un plus laid, plus méchant, plus immonde!
Quoiqu'il ne pousse ni grands gestes, ni grands cris,
Il ferait volontiers de la terre un débris
Et dans un bâillement avalerait le monde.
C'est l'Ennui!- L'oeil chargé d'un pleur involontaire,
Il rêve d'échafauds en fumant son houka.
Tu le connais, lecteur, ce monstre délicat,
--Hypocrite lecteur, --mon semblable, --mon frère!
|
Written by
Charles Baudelaire |
Morne esprit, autrefois amoureux de la lutte,
L'Espoir, dont l'éperon attisait ton ardeur,
Ne veut plus t'enfourcher! Couche-toi sans pudeur,
Vieux cheval dont le pied à chaque obstacle bute.
Résigne-toi, mon coeur; dors ton sommeil de brute.
Esprit vaincu, fourbu! Pour toi, vieux maraudeur,
L'amour n'a plus de gout, non plus que la dispute;
Adieu donc, chants du cuivre et soupirs de la flûte!
Plaisirs, ne tentez plus un coeur sombre et boudeur!
Le Printemps adorable a perdu son odeur!
Et le Temps m'engloutit minute par minute,
Comme la neige immense un corps pris de roideur;
Je contemple d'en haut le globe en sa rondeur,
Et je n'y cherche plus l'abri d'une cahute.
Avalanche, veux-tu m'emporter dans ta chute?
|
Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
Oh the airman's game is a showman's game, for we all of us watch him go
With his roaring soaring aeroplane and his bombs for the blokes below,
Over the railways and over the dumps, over the Hun and the Turk,
You'll hear him mutter, "What ho, she bumps," when the Archies get to work.
But not of him is the song I sing, though he follow the eagle's flight,
And with shrapnel holes in his splintered wing comes home to his roost at night.
He may silver his wings on the shining stars, he may look from the throne on high,
He may follow the flight of the wheeling kite in the blue Egyptian sky,
But he's only a hero built to plan, turned out by the Army schools,
And I sing of the rankless, thankless man who hustles the Army mules.
Now where he comes from and where he lives is a mystery dark and dim,
And it's rarely indeed that the General gives a D.
S.
O.
to him.
The stolid infantry digs its way like a mole in a ruined wall;
The cavalry lends a tone, they say, to what were else but a brawl;
The Brigadier of the Mounted Fut like a cavalry Colonel swanks
When he goeth abroad like a gilded nut to receive the General's thanks;
The Ordnance man is a son of a gun and his lists are a standing joke;
You order, "Choke arti Jerusalem one" for Jerusalem artichoke.
The Medicals shine with a number nine, and the men of the great R.
E.
,
Their Colonels are Methodist, married or mad, and some of them all the three;
In all these units the road to fame is taught by the Army schools,
But a man has got to be born to the game when he tackles the Army mules.
For if you go where the depots are as the dawn is breaking grey,
By the waning light of the morning star as the dust cloud clears away,
You'll see a vision among the dust like a man and a mule combined --
It's the kind of thing you must take on trust for its outlines aren't defined,
A thing that whirls like a spinning top and props like a three legged stool,
And you find its a long-legged Queensland boy convincing an Army mule.
And the rider sticks to the hybrid's hide like paper sticks to a wall,
For a "magnoon" Waler is next to ride with every chance of a fall,
It's a rough-house game and a thankless game, and it isn't a game for a fool,
For an army's fate and a nation's fame may turn on an Army mule.
And if you go to the front-line camp where the sleepless outposts lie,
At the dead of night you can hear the tramp of the mule train toiling by.
The rattle and clink of a leading-chain, the creak of the lurching load,
As the patient, plodding creatures strain at their task in the shell-torn road,
Through the dark and the dust you may watch them go till the dawn is grey in the sky,
And only the watchful pickets know when the "All-night Corps" goes by.
And far away as the silence falls when the last of the train has gone,
A weary voice through the darkness: "Get on there, men, get on!"
It isn't a hero, built to plan, turned out by the modern schools,
It's only the Army Service man a-driving his Army mules.
|
Written by
Robert Pinsky |
Some of us believe
We would have conceived romantic
Love out of our own passions
With no precedents,
Without songs and poetry--
Or have invented poetry and music
As a comb of cells for the honey.
Shaped by ignorance,
A succession of new worlds,
Congruities improvised by
Immigrants or children.
I once thought most people were Italian,
Jewish or Colored.
To be white and called
Something like Ed Ford
Seemed aristocratic,
A rare distinction.
Possibly I believed only gentiles
And blonds could be left-handed.
Already famous
After one year in the majors,
Whitey Ford was drafted by the Army
To play ball in the flannels
Of the Signal Corps, stationed
In Long Branch, New Jersey.
A night game, the silver potion
Of the lights, his pink skin
Shining like a burn.
Never a player
I liked or hated: a Yankee,
A mere success.
But white the chalked-off lines
In the grass, white and green
The immaculate uniform,
And white the unpigmented
Halo of his hair
When he shifted his cap:
So ordinary and distinct,
So close up, that I felt
As if I could have made him up,
Imagined him as I imagined
The ball, a scintilla
High in the black backdrop
Of the sky.
Tight red stitches.
Rawlings.
The bleached
Horsehide white: the color
Of nothing.
Color of the past
And of the future, of the movie screen
At rest and of blank paper.
"I could have.
" The mind.
The black
Backdrop, the white
Fly picked out by the towering
Lights.
A few years later
On a blanket in the grass
By the same river
A girl and I came into
Being together
To the faint muttering
Of unthinkable
Troubadours and radios.
The emerald
Theater, the night.
Another time,
I devised a left-hander
Even more gifted
Than Whitey Ford: A Dodger.
People were amazed by him.
Once, when he was young,
He refused to pitch on Yom Kippur.
|
Written by
William Topaz McGonagall |
'Twas in the year 1815, and on the 18th day of June,
That British cannon, against the French army, loudly did boom,
Upon the ever memorable bloody field of Waterloo;
Which Napoleon remembered while in St.
Helena, and bitterly did rue.
The morning of the 18th was gloomy and cheerless to behold,
But the British soon recovered from the severe cold
That they had endured the previous rainy night;
And each man prepared to burnish his arms for the coming fight.
Then the morning passed in mutual arrangements for battle,
And the French guns, at half-past eleven, loudly did rattle;
And immediately the order for attack was given,
Then the bullets flew like lightning till the Heaven's seemed riven.
The place from which Bonaparte viewed the bloody field
Was the farmhouse of La Belle Alliance, which some protection did yield;
And there he remained for the most part of the day,
Pacing to and fro with his hands behind him in doubtful dismay.
The Duke of Wellington stood upon a bridge behind La Haye,
And viewed the British army in all their grand array,
And where danger threatened most the noble Duke was found
In the midst of shot and shell on every side around.
Hougemont was the key of the Duke of Wellington's position,
A spot that was naturally very strong, and a great acqusition
To the Duke and his staff during the day,
Which the Coldstream Guards held to the last, without dismay.
The French 2nd Corps were principally directed during the day
To carry Hougemont farmhouse without delay;
So the farmhouse in quick succession they did attack,
But the British guns on the heights above soon drove them back.
But still the heavy shot and shells ploughed through the walls;
Yet the brave Guards resolved to hold the place no matter what befalls;
And they fought manfully to the last, with courage unshaken,
Until the tower of Hougemont was in a blaze but still it remained untaken.
By these desperate attacks Napoleon lost ten thousand men,
And left them weltering in their gore like sheep in a pen;
And the British lost one thousand men-- which wasn't very great,
Because the great Napoleon met with a crushing defeat.
The advance of Napoleon on the right was really very fine,
Which was followed by a general onset upon the British line,
In which three hundred pieces of artillery opened their cannonade;
But the British artillery played upon them, and great courage displayed.
For ten long hours it was a continued succession of attacks;
Whilst the British cavalry charged them in all their drawbacks;
And the courage of the British Army was great in square at Waterloo,
Because hour after hour they were mowed down in numbers not a few.
At times the temper of the troops had very nearly failed,
Especially amongst the Irish regiments who angry railed;
And they cried: " When will we get at them? Show us the way
That we may avenge the death of our comrades without delay"
"But be steady and cool, my brave lads," was their officers' command,
While each man was ready to charge with gun in hand;
Oh, Heaven! if was pitiful to see their comrades lying around,
Dead and weltering in their gore, and cumbering the ground.
It was a most dreadful sight to behold,
Heaps upon heaps of dead men lying stiff and cold;
While the cries of the dying was lamentable to hear;
And for the loss Of their comrades many a soldier shed a tear.
Men and horses fell on every aide around,
Whilst heavy cannon shot tore up the ground;
And musket balls in thousands flew,
And innocent blood bedewed the field of Waterloo.
Methinks I see the solid British square,
Whilst the shout of the French did rend the air,
As they rush against the square of steel.
Which forced them back and made them reel.
And when a gap was made in that square,
The cry of "Close up! Close up!" did rend the air,
"And charge them with your bayonets, and make them fly!
And Scotland for ever! be the cry.
"
The French and British closed in solid square,
While the smoke of the heavy cannonade darkened the air;
Then the noble Picton deployed his division into line,
And drove back the enemy in a very short time.
Then Lord Anglesey seized on the moment, and charging with the Greys,
Whilst the Inniskillings burst through everything, which they did always;
Then the French infantry fell in hundreds by the swords of the Dragoons;
Whilst the thundering of the cannonade loudly booms.
And the Eagles of the 45th and 105th were all captured that day,
And upwards of 2000 prisoners, all in grand array;
But, alas! at the head of his division, the noble Picton fell,
While the Highlanders played a lament for him they loved so well.
Then the French cavalry receded from the square they couldn't penetrate,
Still Napoleon thought to weary the British into defeat;
But when he saw his columns driven back in dismay,
He cried, "How beautifully these English fight, but they must give way.
"
And well did British bravery deserve the proud encomium,
Which their enduring courage drew from the brave Napoleon;
And when the close column of infantry came on the British square,
Then the British gave one loud cheer which did rend the air.
Then the French army pressed forward at Napoleon's command,
Determined, no doubt, to make a bold stand;
Then Wellington cried, " Up Guards and break their ranks through,
And chase the French invaders from off the field of Waterloo!"
Then, in a moment, they were all on their feet,
And they met the French, sword in hand, and made them retreat;
Then Wellington in person directed the attack,
And at every point and turning the French were beaten back.
And the road was choked and encumbered with the dead;
And, unable to stand the charge, the French instantly fled,
And Napoleon's army of yesterday was now a total wreck,
Which the British manfully for ten long hours held in check.
Then, panic-struck, the French were forced to yield,
And Napoleon turned his charger's head, and fled from the field,
With his heart full of woe, no doubt
Exclaiming, "Oh, Heaven! my noble army has met with a total rout!"
|