{"id":493,"date":"2018-11-10T17:43:58","date_gmt":"2018-11-10T17:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=493"},"modified":"2018-11-10T17:43:58","modified_gmt":"2018-11-10T17:43:58","slug":"centennial-ghosts-and-a-present-ghast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=493","title":{"rendered":"Centennial Ghosts And a Present Ghast"},"content":{"rendered":"

November 11th<\/sup>, 2018<\/i><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the centenary of Armistice that ended the fighting in World War I. As a boy in both England and Canada, I gathered with my classmates under the flags\u2014Union Jack and Red Ensign\u2014and observed a Minute of Silence. We stood, knowing that all who could pause in their work throughout the land was doing the same. It was outdoors, and often it was raining or even snowing, chill and damp, but nobody ever dared complain. From as soon as we were able to understand what war was, we were told of the fantastic hardship and sacrifice the Tommies paid (and, as time passed, speeches included the Yanks, the Froggies and finally the Boche). We wore poppies and thanked the survivors. And honoured the dead.<\/p>\n

Yesterday Trump\u2019s flacks announced that he wouldn\u2019t attend a service at the cemetery where many of the American troops who perished lay. It was the weather, you see. And scheduling. Trump may or may not have any reasons to be in Europe other than to see a big parade, but apparently someone forgot to mention that at 11:11 am on 11\/11\/18, Trump might think about something other than Trump.<\/p>\n

As for the weather, well, the fallen in those graves would certainly understand. Bone spurs can really throb on wet days, and with a forecast of showers and temperatures in the fifties, Trump certainly deserves to be inside, warm and cozy, where he can think about the soldiers in comfort. Lord knows the troops knew that being exposed to the elements in France in November could be deucedly inconvenient, what ho?<\/p>\n

Still, Trump is a shitstain, composed of the same substance the soldiers squelched their way through in the trenches. He is nothing.<\/p>\n

Today, the soldiers who died in that horrific war are everything. I won\u2019t try to honour them; I can\u2019t. I can only respect them. Only those who have given as much as they did could honour them.<\/p>\n

Instead, I\u2019ll simply post some of the poetry written by those courageous men who sacrificed so much:<\/p>\n

DULCE ET DECORUM EST
\nWilfred Owen<\/b><\/p>\n

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
\nKnock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
\nTill on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
\nAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.
\nMen marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
\nBut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
\nDrunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
\nOf gas-shells dropping softly behind.<\/p>\n

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!–An ecstasy of fumbling
\nFitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
\nBut someone still was yelling out and stumbling
\nAnd flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.–
\nDim through the misty panes and thick green light,
\nAs under a green sea, I saw him drowning.<\/p>\n

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
\nHe plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.<\/p>\n

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
\nBehind the wagon that we flung him in,
\nAnd watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
\nHis hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
\nIf you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
\nCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
\nBitter as the cud
\nOf vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,–
\nMy friend, you would not tell with such high zest
\nTo children ardent for some desperate glory,
\nThe old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
\nPro patria mori.<\/p>\n

The Latin title of this poem means:
\n“Sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country.”
\n(From Horace, Odes, III. ii. 13)<\/p>\n

NOTE: Owen was killed on 11\/11\/18, hours before the Armistice took
\neffect. He had served in the trenches for four years.<\/i><\/p>\n

Break of Day in the Trenches
\nIsaac Rosenberg (1890-1918)<\/b><\/p>\n

The darkness crumbles away.
\nIt is the same old druid Time as ever,
\nOnly a live thing leaps my hand,
\nA queer sardonic rat
\nAs I pull the parapet’s poppy
\nTo stick behind my ear.
\nDroll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
\nYour cosmopolitan sympathies.
\nNow you have touched this English hand
\nYou will do the same to a German
\nSoon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
\nTo cross the sleeping green between.
\nIt seems you inwardly grin as you pass
\nStrong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
\nLess chanced than you for life,
\nBonds to the whims of murder,
\nSprawled in the bowels of the earth,
\nThe torn fields of France.
\nWhat do you see in our eyes
\nAt the shrieking iron and flame
\nHurled through still heavens?
\nWhat quaver — what heart aghast?
\nPoppies whose roots are in man’s veins
\nDrop, and are ever dropping;
\nBut mine in my ear is safe —
\nJust a little white with the dust.<\/p>\n

June 1916<\/i><\/p>\n

For The Fallen
\nLaurence Binyon<\/b><\/p>\n

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
\nEngland mourns for her dead across the sea.
\nFlesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
\nFallen in the cause of the free.<\/p>\n

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
\nSings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
\nThere is music in the midst of desolation
\nAnd a glory that shines upon our tears.<\/p>\n

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
\nStraight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
\nThey were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
\nThey fell with their faces to the foe.<\/p>\n

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
\nAge shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
\nAt the going down of the sun and in the morning
\nWe will remember them.<\/p>\n

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
\nThey sit no more at familiar tables of home;
\nThey have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
\nThey sleep beyond England’s foam.<\/p>\n

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
\nFelt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
\nTo the innermost heart of their own land they are known
\nAs the stars are known to the Night;<\/p>\n

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
\nMoving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
\nAs the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
\nTo the end, to the end, they remain.<\/p>\n

\n

The Rainbow
\nLeslie Coulson<\/b><\/p>\n

I watch the white dawn gleam,
\nTo the thunder of hidden guns.
\nI hear the hot shells scream
\nThrough skies as sweet as a dream
\nWhere the silver dawnbreak runs.
\nAnd stabbing of light
\nScorches the virginal white.
\nBut I feel in my being the old, high, sanctified thrill,
\nAnd I thank the gods that dawn is beautiful still.<\/p>\n

From death that hurtles by
\nI crouch in the trench day-long
\nBut up to a cloudless sky
\nFrom the ground where our dead men lie
\nA brown lark soars in song.
\nThrough the tortured air,
\nRent by the shrapnel’s flare,
\nOver the troubled dead he carols his fill,
\nAnd I thank the gods that the birds are beautiful still.<\/p>\n

Where the parapet is low
\nAnd level with the eye
\nPoppies and cornflowers glow
\nAnd the corn sways to and fro
\nIn a pattern against the sky.
\nThe gold stalks hide
\nBodies of men who died
\nCharging at dawn through the dew to be killed or to kill.
\nI thank the gods that the flowers are beautiful still.<\/p>\n

When night falls dark we creep
\nIn silence to our dead.
\nWe dig a few feet deep
\nAnd leave them there to sleep –
\nBut blood at night is red,
\nYea, even at night,
\nAnd a dead man’s face is white.
\nAnd I dry my hands, that are also trained to kill,
\nAnd I look at the stars – for the stars are beautiful still.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

November 11th, 2018 It\u2019s the centenary of Armistice that ended the fighting in World War I. As a boy in both England and Canada, I gathered with my classmates under the flags\u2014Union Jack and Red Ensign\u2014and observed a Minute of Silence. We stood, knowing that all who could pause in their work throughout the land … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Centennial Ghosts And a Present Ghast”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[617],"tags":[620,623,619,624,622,618,621],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-armistice","tag-flanders-field","tag-november-11","tag-poetry","tag-poppy","tag-remembrance-day","tag-world-war-i"],"yoast_head":"\nCentennial Ghosts And a Present Ghast · Zepp's Commentaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=493\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Centennial Ghosts And a Present Ghast · Zepp's Commentaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"November 11th, 2018 It\u2019s the centenary of Armistice that ended the fighting in World War I. 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