Veteran’s Day 2016

We at Cannell Library would like to honor our veterans, those who have served and to those who are serving us today, by sharing a few poems by soldiers from past wars.

The first is a poem by Carl Sandburg from 1918

Grass

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

The second poem is by Marc de Larreguy de Civrieux from February 1916.

The Soldier’s Soliloquies – I

After the Charleroi affair
And since we waved the Marne goodbye,
I drag my carcass everywhere,
But never know the reason why.

In trench or barn I spend each day,
From fort or attic glimpse the sky,
At this war simply slog away,
but never know the reason why.

I as, hoping to understand
This slaughter’s purpose. The reply
I get is: ‘For the Motherland!’
But never know the reason why.

Better for me to just keep mum
And, when it’s my own turn to die,
Depart this life for kingdom come,
But never know the reason why.

Translated by D. D. R. Owens.

The final poem is by Walt Whitman from 1865

Dirge for Two Veterans

The last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finish’d Sabbath,
On the pavement here, and there beyond it is looking,
Down a new-made double grave.

Lo, the moon ascending,
Up from the east the silvery round moon,
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon,
Immense and silent moon.

I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-key’d bugles,
All the channels of the city streets they’re flooding,
As with voices and with tears.

I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring,
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
Strikes me through and through.

For the son is brought with the father,
(In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell,
Two veterans son and father dropt together,
And the double grave awaits them.)

Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive,
And the daylight o’er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.

In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin’d,
(‘Tis some mother’s large transparent face,
In heaven brighter growing.)

O strong dead-march you please me!
O moon immense with your silvery face you soothe me!
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans passing to burial!
What I have I also give you.

The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love.