h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Speak for yourself, Jabs: I knew that one of Paul's was Yeats, but I would have to look up the title. I haven't a clue about your latest one, but it sounds damn good.

I'll repost it, as we're on to a new page.

Quoting from Jabs...

This one I've chosen could be called Afghanistan, but it isn't. It has a title, but some sources seem not to give it.

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps* and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
. . . .
You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.


* meaning obscure. The thudding impacts of shells?

Thanks WFAT. I think it's damn good too.

Unlikely, I know - as they're professional soldiers not conscripts, but if one of those in Afghanistan did what the lad in the poem did they'd still return as Official Heroes like the rest no doubt - what a grisly hypocrisy that would be...or is the fact that they're *all* automatically Heroes (though of course many are) enough hypocrisy in itself?

It's been said that men are drawn to war because war is like lifting up the edge of the universe to see what's behind it. Alas, seeing such potent truth can blind you, deafen you, and chop you up until you go mad. Young men are so hungry for enlightenment, and what they end up with may be too much for them to swallow.

Or, as Nietzsche put it, "Wisdom sets bound even to knowledge: once and for all, there are some things I do not wish to know."

By the way, here's what I went for as a funeral ode. It's an anonymous piece that I found on the net, and amended slightly (possibly not enough). Short and sweet - and perhaps verging on the twee - but quite effective when read with feeling.

We think of you with love today,
But that is nothing new:
We thought about you yesterday.
And will tomorrow, too.
Sometimes we'll think in silence,
Sometimes we'll speak your name.
Now all we have are memories
And your photo in a frame.
Your memory is our keepsake,
With which we'll never part.
God has you in his keeping.
We have you in our heart.

If it's anonymous, how are we going to guess the author?

I didn't realize this thread was going to get so hard.....

I thought you'd relish the challenge, Paul.

Jabs, that poem by Siegfried Sassoon is called "Suicide In The Trenches", I believe.

Here's one of a similar vintage.

Sidney, in whom the heyday of romance
Came to its precious and most perfect flower,
Whether you tourneyed with victorious lance
Or brought sweet roundelays to Stella's bower,
I give myself some credit for the way
I have kept clean of what enslaves and lowers,
Shunned the ideals of our present day
And studied those that were esteemed in yours;
For, turning from the mob that buys Success
By sacrificing all Life's better part,
Down the free roads of human happiness
I frolicked, poor of purse but light of heart,
And lived in strict devotion all along
To my three idols -- Love and Arms and Song.

It's by Alan Seeger, a completely new name to me, and I can't find a title other than 'Sonnet'. If it was written during the War, it seems anachronistic to me, from the earlier Romantic-and-Romance school, with its flowery language and images.

And now for something completely different (whole poem):


when I look back now
at the abuse I took from
her
I feel shame that I was so
innocent,
but I must say
she did match me drink for
drink,
and I realized that her life
her feelings for things
had been ruined
along the way
and that I was no mare than a
temporary
companion;

she was ten years older
and mortally hurt by the past
and the present;

she treated me badly:
desertion, other
men;
she brought me immense
pain,
continually;
she lied, stole;
there was desertion,
other men,
yet we had our moments; and
our little soap opera ended
with her in a coma
in the hospital,
and I sat at her bed
for hours
talking to her,

and then she opened her eyes
and saw me:
"I knew it would be you,"
she said.
then she closed her
eyes.
the next day she was
dead.

I drank alone
for two years
after that.

How very sad...

Charles Bukowski - My First Affair With That Older Woman

This one is equally so, the author's name not so much...


Rubies run lines on your thick skin
They drop and shatter to the ground
Leaving yet another blue vein empty

Empty without its preciousness
That which touched many lives
And put rainbows on endless days

Those marks,
If they were any more discreet
I'd swear the sky be blue
And your heart be gold.

The how and why no longer exist
It's all in the past tense
All that matters is the when

When your sun'll shine high
And when the stars envy your dance
As they did before your rubies fell

It's a nice poem, Magwitch, but it isn't searchable.

Yes,it's a sad and brilliant poem. But you need to check that a poem's able to be googlised, otherwise we don't stand a chance, unless the poem is very famous. It's a good idea to check for yourself first.

Mag - can you tell us about it, and then have another go?


Jabs

Sorry, folks I didn't think to google it. I even went to the website I found it on and searched for it to no avail.

I eventually remembered the name of poet so here it is;

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-know-you-re-stronger/

I'll try again. This one's very long but the first verse'll find it.

My lov'd, much honour'd, much respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays;
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end,
My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise:
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! tho his worth unknown, far happier there I ween!

That's extraordinary mags, the poem that was on the web but not on google. Can hardly blame you for that.

Jabs

Us poetry-starved researchers are ill-served by that....

That's Robert Burns, a considerable poet that I've much neglected, probably due in the main to his use of Scots vernacular. Its title is
The Cotter's Saturday Night.

Now, for poetry-starved researchers, here's one verse (from a longish poem), with more than enough sustenance by itself. Who wrote it, and what is the poem called?


The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Gawd, I've not read any Thomas Gray for years, Jabs - thanks for the reminder. The poem is Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.

Another old favourite of mine:

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. -- Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Alan Seeger, uncle of Pete, was born in 1888 and was a classmate of TS Eliot at Harvard. He wrote several sonnets and the one I quoted is usually referred to as Sonnet 01. Eliot said of his work that it "is well done, and so much out of date as to be almost a positive quality." I rather like it, personally. Seeger joined the French Foreign Legion to fight in WW1 and died in action. His most famous poem was probably "I Have a Rendezvous with Death".

The poemhunter site is behaving even more strangely than usual at the moment. I tried searching for that Summer Joy poem there, using 'preciousness' as a keyword, but it would only look in poem titles, whereas it usually gives you the option to search texts as well.

I think that juice and joy poem is by Gerard Manley Hopkins and the title, I suspect is 'Spring'.

Thanks for the info, WFAT. Next poem please?

A nice easy one, then.

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.