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ancientreaderI present to you this sonnet by Charles Hamilton Sorley, who was killed at the Battle of Loos in October 1915, aged 19 or 20.
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto,
“Yet many a better one has died before.”
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.
--
Found, because life and death enjoy a little melodrama from time to time, in his kit bag after his death, and written, naturally, in pencil. "It is easy to be dead" and the closing couplet slammed me hard.
Here's an essay discussing him briefly and placing him in a larger analysis of WWI poetry and its uses.
You're welcome.
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto,
“Yet many a better one has died before.”
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.
--
Found, because life and death enjoy a little melodrama from time to time, in his kit bag after his death, and written, naturally, in pencil. "It is easy to be dead" and the closing couplet slammed me hard.
Here's an essay discussing him briefly and placing him in a larger analysis of WWI poetry and its uses.
You're welcome.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-24 04:02 am (UTC)"It is easy to be dead" is the line that stands out starkly for me, too.
It reminds me of a few lines at the beginning of one of Rilke's requiems that I've always found quietly frightening:
I have my dead, and I have let them go,
and was amazed to see them so contented,
so soon at home in being dead, so cheerful,
so unlike their reputation.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 05:08 am (UTC)I don't exactly find the Rilke frightening but I do wonder whether the speaker really has let his dead go, given what close attention he appears to have paid them. Maybe, come to think of it, that attachment is somewhat unnerving.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-24 12:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 05:09 am (UTC)No, that article is definitely not first-thing-in-the-morning reading!
no subject
Date: 2020-02-24 10:17 pm (UTC)That's so worth sharing, thank you.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-02 05:10 am (UTC)