Poetry is for Fags

[Solid]

"Do not go gentle into that good night (my own insertion: do not leave without a fight) Rage, RAGE against the dying of the light"
plays over in my head when I'm in what I percieve as a dangerous situation.

"Hard pressed on my right. My center is yielding. Impossible to maneuver. Situation excellent. I am attacking."
Marshal Ferdinand Foch, Battle of Marne

There is a similar quote which I believe came from Jerry "Mad Dog" Shriver, but I wouldn't feel right quoting it considering the number of SOG guys around here.

---------------
Some lines from songs and poems which are ostensibly anti-war, but whose lines can be interpreted with pride and emotion.

"Dolce et Decorum Est, Pro Patria Mori"
(General saying)

CCR- Fortunate Son
"Some folks are born, made to wave the flag
Ooh yeah, that red, white, and blue...

...Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
They only answer "More! More! More!""

It's a strange phenomenon that anti-war songs from the Vietnam War era often have the inverse effect.

Solid

[CommoGeek]

William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903

Invictus

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

[CommoGeek]

RENDEZVOUS
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air--
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath--
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

[Sigi]

Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste death but once.
--Shakespeare: Julius Caesar


You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.
--Sir Winston Churchill


"Heroism is endurance for one moment more." ~ Anonymous


"Given enough time, any man may master the physical. With enough knowledge, any man may become wise. It is the true warrior who can master both....and surpass the result." --Tien T'ai


I dislike death, however, there are some things I dislike more than death. Therefore, there are times when I will not avoid danger."--Mencius


"Without Knowledge, Skill cannot be focused. Without Skill, Strength cannot be brought to bear and without Strength, Knowledge may not be applied." --Alexander the Great's Chief Physican


I have a high art, I hurt with cruelty those who would damage me. - Archilocus, 650 B.C.

[Guy]

No man ever listened himself out of a job.
-CALVIN COOLIDGE

There ain't no rules around here!
We're trying to accomplish something!
-THOMAS EDISON

People who work sitting down get paid more than people who work standing up.
-OGDEN NASH

[D9 (RIP)]

In Flander's Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Lt Col John McCrae (1872-1918) - Canadian Army WWI

[D9 (RIP)]

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas shells dropping sofly behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Translation: Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori = it is beautiful and proper to die for the fatherland (i.e. nation)

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

[D9 (RIP)]

When I was a King and a Mason-a master proven and skilled-
I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build.
I decreed and cut down to my levels, and presently, under the silt,
I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built.

There was no worth in the fashion-there was no wit in the plan-
Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran-
Masonry, brute, mishandled; but carven on every stone:
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known."

Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew,
I tumbled his quoins and ashlars, and cut and reset them anew.
Lime I milled of his marbles ; burned it, slacked it and spread;
Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.

Yet I despised not nor gloried; yet as we wrenched them apart,
I read in the razed foundations the heart of that builder's heart.
As though he had risen and pleaded, so did I understand
The form of the dream he had followed in the face of the thing he had planned.

When I was King and a Mason-in the open noon of my pride,
They sent me a Word from the Darkness-They whispered and called me aside.
They said-"The end is forbidden." They said-"Thy use is fulfilled,
"And thy Palace shall stand as that other's-the spoil of a King who shall build. "

I called my men from my trenches, my quarries, my wharves and my sheers.
All I had wrought I abandoned to the faith of the faithless years.
Only I cut on the timber-only I carved on the stone:
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him I, too, have known."

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

[ktek01]

If you can't hack that then I would choose another profession. One where you don't have to take your man pill every day.

buckIVranger responding to AC wannabe c2004

[Air.177]

I won't post it all here, but here is the last paragraph:

'E carried me away
To where a dooli lay,
An' a bullet come an' drilled the beggar clean.
'E put me safe inside,
An' just before 'e died,
"I 'ope you liked your drink", sez Gunga Din.
So I'll meet 'im later on
At the place where 'e is gone --
Where it's always double drill and no canteen;
'E'll be squattin' on the coals
Givin' drink to poor damned souls,
An' I'll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!
Yes, Din! Din! Din!
You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I've belted you and flayed you,
By the livin' Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

Rudyard Kipling

[Air.177]

These, in the day when heaven was falling,
The hour when earth's foundations fled,
Followed their mercenary calling
And took their wages and are dead.

Their shoulders held the sky. suspended;
They stood, and earth's foundations stay;
What God abandoned, these defended,
And saved the sum of things

A. E. Houseman

[Air.177]

Not Poetry, but very good None the less:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

Dear Madam,--

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.

I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

[DoctorDoom]

x

[GackMan]

Robert Duvall as Hub in the film Secondhand Lions:

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most.

That people are basically good.
That honor, virtue, and courage mean everything; that money and power mean nothing.
That good always triumphs over evil.
That true love never dies.

Doesn't matter if they're true or not. A man should believe in those things anyway. Because they are the things worth believing in."

[Jimbo]

Hangs on my wall:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!


--Rudyard Kipling