Remembrance

[Colleen Thomas]

 

[TheEarl]

The Earl

 

[CharleyH]

 

[SeaCat]

A candle is lit to guide their way.


Day is done,
Gone the sun,
From the hills,
From the Lake,
From the skies.
All is well,
Safely rest,
God is nigh.

Go to sleep,
Peaceful sleep.
May the soldier
or sailor
God keep.
On the land
Or the Deep,
Safe in sleep.

Love, good night,
Must though go,
When the day
And the night
Need thee so?
All is well.
Speedeth all
To their rest.

Fades the light,
And afar
Goeth day,
And the stars
Shineth bright,
Fare thee well,
Day has gone,
Night is on.

Thanks and praise,
For our days
'Neath the sun,
'Neath the stars,
'Neath the sky,
As we go,
This we know,
God is nigh.


Cat

 

[shereads]

<Looks around nervously before adding link.

Faces of the Fallen is a Washington Post service with names and pictures of the American military dead in Afghanistan and Iraq. It carries no commentary, and no political statement is intended by posting it. I open this link now and then and click on a name or two, and a face smiles back at me, full of life. I do it because it feels right to me. Sad, but right, like giving them one more moment in the light.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/world/iraq/casualties/facesofthefallen.htm?nav=lb

 

[herecomestherain]

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS 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.

 

[cantdog]

 

[shereads]

THE time you won your town the race _
We chaired you through the market-place; _
Man and boy stood cheering by, _
And home we brought you shoulder-high. _
__
To-day, the road all runners come, _________
Shoulder-high we bring you home, _
And set you at your threshold down, _
Townsman of a stiller town. _
__
Smart lad, to slip betimes away _
From fields where glory does not stay, __
And early though the laurel grows _
It withers quicker than the rose. _
__
Eyes the shady night has shut _
Cannot see the record cut, _
And silence sounds no worse than cheers __
After earth has stopped the ears: _
__
Now you will not swell the rout _
Of lads that wore their honours out, _
Runners whom renown outran _
And the name died before the man. __
__
So set, before its echoes fade, _
The fleet foot on the sill of shade, _
And hold to the low lintel up _
The still-defended challenge-cup. _
__
And round that early-laurelled head __
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, _
And find unwithered on its curls _
The garland briefer than a girl's.

~ A. E. Houseman





__

 

[cantdog]

.

 

[fifty5]

I bought a poppy - but don't wear it.

The mixture of reverence and hypocrisy (draft them, then get sentimental after they're dead, or maimed) is something I can't get my head round.

I can't even cope with draft versus volunteer.

All wars seem diabolic - but not fighting against evil seems just as bad.

...

 

[herecomestherain]

The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Words and Music: Eric Bogle.

Copyright: Larrikin Music, Sydney, Australia
Reproduced here by kind permission of the author.

When I was a young man I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of the rover.
From the Murray's green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over.
Then in nineteen fifteen the country said, "Son,
It's time to stop rambling, there's work to be done."
And they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun,
And they marched me away to the war.
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As our ship pulled away from the quay,
And amidst all the cheers, flag-waving and tears
We sailed off to Gallipoli.

And how well I remember that terrible day,
How our blood stained the sand and the water.
And of how in that hell that they call Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter.
Johnny Turk he was waiting, he primed himself well,
He showered us with bullets, and he rained us with shell,
And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell,
Nearly blew us right back to Australia.
But the band played Waltzing Matilda,
As we stopped to bury our slain.
We buried ours, and the Turks buried theirs,
Then we started all over again.

Now those that were left, well, we tried to survive
In that mad world of blood, death and fire.
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive,
But around me, the corpses piled higher.
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over head,
And when I woke up in me hospital bed
And saw what it had done, well, I wished I was dead.
Never knew there was worse things than dying.
For I'll go no more Waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and free,
To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs,
No more Waltzing Matilda for me.

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed,
And they shipped us back home to Australia.
The armless, the legless, the blind and insane,
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla.
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where me legs used to be,
And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me,
To grieve and to mourn and to pity.
But the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway.
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared,
Then they turned all their faces away.

And so now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me.
And I see my old comrades, how proudly they march,
Reviving old dreams of past glory.
And the old men marched slowly, all bones stiff and sore,
They're tired old heroes from a forgotten war,
And the young people ask,"What are they marching for?",
And I ask meself the same question.
But the band plays Waltzing Matilda,
And the old men still answer the call.
But as year follows year, more old men disappear,
Someday no one will march there at all.

Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me ?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by the billabong,
Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me ?




 

[KarenAM]

 

[Wicked-N-Erotic]

 

[cloudy]

 

[cantdog]

.

 

[OhMissScarlett]

THE time you won your town the race _
We chaired you through the market-place; _
Man and boy stood cheering by, _
And home we brought you shoulder-high. _
__
To-day, the road all runners come, _________
Shoulder-high we bring you home, _
And set you at your threshold down, _
Townsman of a stiller town. _
__
Smart lad, to slip betimes away _
From fields where glory does not stay, __
And early though the laurel grows _
It withers quicker than the rose. _
__
Eyes the shady night has shut _
Cannot see the record cut, _
And silence sounds no worse than cheers __
After earth has stopped the ears: _
__
Now you will not swell the rout _
Of lads that wore their honours out, _
Runners whom renown outran _
And the name died before the man. __
__
So set, before its echoes fade, _
The fleet foot on the sill of shade, _
And hold to the low lintel up _
The still-defended challenge-cup. _
__
And round that early-laurelled head __
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead, _
And find unwithered on its curls _
The garland briefer than a girl's.

~ A. E. Houseman





__

Bump for the Houseman poem, it gets me every time.

 

[JRaven]

Thanks.

 

[Guest]

 

[Edward Teach]

 

[Liar]

(Curiously, the poppy as a symbol was news to me.)

#L

 

[Guest]

 

[tolyk]

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS 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.

 

[tolyk]

(Curiously, the poppy as a symbol was news to me.)

#L

Why the Poppy?
Poppy seed will lie in the ground for years if the soil is undisturbed. That churned up cemetery known as the Western Front provided the ideal medium for masses of poppies to blanket the graves. By the 1920s, Legion Branches were selling the paper flowers to: provide assistance to needy ex-servicemen and their families, to build housing for seniors, and support programs like meals-on-wheels, drop-in centres, etc. Buy and wear a poppy. It is simple, painless way to recognize contributions and sacrifices barely imaginable to us.

 

[Guest]

 

[oggbashan]

I bought my poppy, three times, because I still haven't learned the art of fixing it with a pin.

I remember my uncle who died of TB contracted while digging tunnels as a Sapper; my wife's uncle who died as a 'D-Day Dodger' in Italy; my father's friend who was a prisoner of war in Changi Jail, Singapore; my father's Australian friend who was the youngest and only survivor of six brothers who attended my school, went to Gallipoli and those who survived that died on the Western Front; my aunt's two fiancés who died there too...

And my US friends who lost people on D-Day and in the Pacific, my work colleagues who were scarred by WWII; my relations who died in both wars and in Korea; my brother's friend who died at Suez;...

The list of people I know or knew that were affected by wars is almost endless. Yet I think also of those who left no one to remember them. Soldiers are still dying today to bring freedom to parts of the world where they don't know what freedom means.

I salute them all.

Og