LitLetter 221: Journey, continued...to The End of the World
Armistice Day, marked by poetry and poppies
Today is 11 November 2023. Armistice Day. On this day 105 years ago, World War 1 ended, its demise sanctioned by mere signatures on a page. At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Today is the day people all over the world sport poppy avatars in their buttonholes, or shirt collars. Why poppies? Here’s why.
In Flanders Fields by John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.
‘We are the Dead.’ The poppies are now an eternal memorial to care-free and colourful life. Fleeting. The larks are singing bravely over us who lie in Flanders Fields. And yet, who are we, the Dead? This is they.
The Dead by Rupert Brooke
These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.
The Dead are ordinary men and women who have been rudely snatched from what should have been a peaceful life in enjoyment of the full panoply of this marvellous and beautiful world. ‘All this is ended.’
How so, ended? Here is how.
Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
The cowbells for those who die as cattle are the monstrous guns, the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle. This brilliant alliteration makes it sound like bullets are st-st-stuttering across marshy wastelands, previsions of Hell. Their pall – used for a coffin, especially holding a body – is the pallor of young girls’ brows, bereaving the death of their lovers.
And then the saddest line in all poetry:
‘And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds’.
Who is sad? Well, everyone. Even those trying to ignore.
The Dancers by Edith Sitwell
The floors are slippery with blood:
The world gyrates too. God is good
That while His wind blows out the light
For those who hourly die for us –
We still can dance, each night.
The music has grown numb with death –
But we will suck their dying breath,
The whispered name they breathed to chance,
To swell our music, make it loud
That we may dance, – may dance.
We are the dull blind carrion-fly
That dance and batten. Though God die
Mad from the horror of the light –
The light is mad, too, flecked with blood, –
We dance, we dance, each night.
This is blitzkrieg satire, intending to dig more deeply by its seeming trivialisation of an awful event, by seeming not to care. And of course, therefore hitting with even greater force perhaps. ‘We are the dull blind carrion-fly that dance and batten. God is dead, driven mad at the horror but we do not care, we dance, we dance each night’.
What is a justification for this carnage? Here.
Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
The language here is a pinnacle of meaning made real. ‘As under a green sea (of gas), I saw him drowning, his white eyes writhing in his face, hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin, his blood gargling from froth-corrupted lungs, obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud of vile, incurable sores.’ We may never encounter again words as these of Owen that address the horror of death in war with such lithe agility and precision.
Please do not trumpet that epithet of Horace - ‘dulce et decorum est pro patria mori’ – it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. Death is never sweet and fitting. Especially on the scale and wanton ubiquity of WW1 – 22 million deaths and 23 million wounded military personnel.
How did this happen? Incompetence. Greed. Lust for Power. Here.
The General by Siegfried Sassoon
‘Good-morning, good-morning!’ the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,
And we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
‘’He's a cheery old card,’ grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.
But he did for them both by his plan of attack.
The ordinariness of these poor soldiers is their tragedy. Led into a hell not of their making, drafted by benighted leaders into an ancient, worthless form of warfare wherein the ego of the Generalissimo was a heavier count than compassionate sense.
Dreamers by Siegfried Sassoon
Soldiers are citizens of death's grey land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds and wives.
I see them in foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.
This insignificant date of 11 November ought not to be an eternal plaque in the history of the world. It ought to be just another date. Its significance is memorialised – and ever will be – by fluttering red poppies with a black pistil.
When you see a poppy, in a field or in the lapel of a jacket – you may wish to reflect upon a catastrophe that destroyed around 3% of all human lives on the planet at that time. The brave show of the poppy – for it is brave – may remind you of the bravery of man and the beauty of the world.
He said that still through chaos
Works on the ancient plan,
And two things have altered not
Since first the world began—
The beauty of the wild green earth
And the bravery of man.
Excerpt from Magpies of Picardy by TP Cameron Wilson