War poetry
Over the Christmas holidays, I've been reading a little anthology of English war poetry. It's profoundly moving. I think that I'm apt to forget just how horrific the First World War was; how long and bloody and cataclysmically shattering of the old world, especially for the powers involved for the whole four long years of stalemate and death. The Great Lover Rupert Brooke I have been so great a lover: filled my days So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise, The pain, the calm, and the astonishment, Desire illimitable, and still content, And all dear names men use, to cheat despair, For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear Our hearts at random down the dark of life. Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far, My night shall be remembered for a star That outshone all the suns of all men's days. Shall I not crown them with immortal praise Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me High secrets,...
