[Peace-discuss] Two timely poems about war

[Karen Medina]

Conrad wroe: > Here are two well-known and still very timely poems
about the horrors of
> war.

Thank you, Conrad, for sharing these. I had not read either before. :
The Parable of the Old Man and the Young, SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES



> The Parable of the Old Man and the Young
>  So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
> And took the fire with him, and a knife.
> And as they sojourned both of them together,
> Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
> Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
> But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
> Then Abram bound the youth with belts and strops,
> And builded parapets and trenches there,
> And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
> When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
> Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
> Neither do anything to him. Behold,
> A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
> Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
>
> But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
> And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
>
> Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen
>
> SUICIDE IN THE TRENCHES
>
> I knew a simple soldier boy
> Who grinned at life in empty joy,
> Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
> And whistled early with the lark.
> In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
> With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
> He put a bullet through his brain.
> No one spoke of him again.
> You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
> Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
> Sneak home and pray you'll never know
> The hell where youth and laughter go.
>
> Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)
> http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jsassoon.htm