[Peace-discuss] Two timely poems about war

[C. G. Estabrook]

Owen & Sassoon are definitely worth reading.

So too is Pat Barker, whose trilogy - /Regeneration/ (1991), /The Eye in the 
Door/ (1993), and /The Ghost Road/ (1995) - has Owen and Sassoon as characters 
and gives a remarkable picture of (the First World) war.  --CGE

On 11/19/10 1:25 PM, Karen Medina wrote:
> 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
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