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<FONT style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt" size=1>Dear friends,</FONT><BR> <BR>Here are two well-known and still very timely poems about the horrors of war.<BR> <BR>In peace and friendship,<BR>Conrad Wetzel<BR>
217-390-9246<BR>
<A href="mailto:mc-wetzel@hotmail.com">mc-wetzel@hotmail.com</A><BR>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<BR> <BR><FONT size=2><STRONG>The Parable of the Old Man and the Young</STRONG></FONT><BR><FONT size=2><STRONG> </STRONG></FONT>So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,<BR>And took the fire with him, and a knife.<BR>And as they sojourned both of them together,<BR>Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,<BR>Behold the preparations, fire and iron,<BR>But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?<BR>Then Abram bound the youth with belts and strops,<BR>And builded parapets and trenches there,<BR>And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.<BR>When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,<BR>Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,<BR>Neither do anything to him. Behold,<BR>A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;<BR>Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him. <BR><FONT size=1></FONT> <BR>But the old man would not so, but slew his son,<BR>And half the seed of Europe, one by one.<BR> <BR>Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)<BR><A href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen" target=_blank>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen</A><BR><U></U><B><FONT size=5><FONT size=2></FONT> <BR><FONT size=2>SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES</FONT><BR></B></FONT> <BR>I knew a simple soldier boy <BR>Who grinned at life in empty joy, <BR>Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, <BR>And whistled early with the lark. <BR>In winter trenches, cowed and glum, <BR>With crumps and lice and lack of rum, <BR>He put a bullet through his brain. <BR>No one spoke of him again. <BR>You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye <BR>Who cheer when soldier lads march by, <BR>Sneak home and pray you'll never know <BR>The hell where youth and laughter go.<BR> <BR>Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)<BR><A href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jsassoon.htm" target=_blank>http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jsassoon.htm</A><BR> <BR>______________________________________________________________________________________<BR> <BR> <BR><BR> </body>
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