I will remember – Three Poems for Armistice Day, 2017

General Lipošćak visits 26th infantry regiment of Royal Croatian Home Guard on the Eastern front, 1917.
[Public Domain]

I am keeping my tradition of posting poetry to honor the war dead on Armistice Day, but I'm also switching it up a bit.  Instead of posting just one poem, I'm posting three: one from a British poet, one from a German, and one that I just like that doesn't really have anything to do with war.

This first poem is by British WWI poet Wilfred Owen–one of my favorite Twentieth Century poets.  He died mere days before the Armistice was called. ~AJ

Dulce et Decorum Est

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 tor 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 softly 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 flound'ring 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, chocking, 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.

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This next poem is by German playwright Ernst Toller.  He survived the war, though not unchanged.  And he didn't survive long.  He was exiled from Germany in 1933 when the Nazis came to power.  In 1939, after learning that his brother and sister had been sent to a concentration camp–did I mention they were Jewish—he hung himself.  

Spring

In spring I go to war

To sing or to die.

What do I care for my own troubles?

Today I shatter them, laughing in pieces.

Oh, Brothers, know that young spring came

In a whirlwind.

Quickly throw off tired grief

And follow her in a host.

I have never felt so strongly

How much I love you, Oh, Germany,

As the magic of spring surrounds you

Amidst the bustle of war.

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The final poem was written by Antun Branko Šimić, a Croation poet who, as far as I can tell, had nothing to do with the war.  He did, however, write extensively about death.  Šimić lived a total of 26 years, from 1898 to 1925 when he died of tuberculosis.  I'm going to post both the translated and untranslated poem below. 

Warning                                  Opomena

Man, be careful                                Čovječe pazi

not to walk small                             da ne ideš malen

under the stars.                                ispod zvijezda!

                                                             Pusti

May your whole body                    da cijelog tebe prode

be filled with                                    blaga svjetlost zvijezda!

the dim light of the stars!  

                                                              Da ni za čim ne žališ

To have no regrets                          kad se budeš zadnjim pogledima

when with the last glance               rastajo od zvijezda!

you part with the stars!                   Na svom koncu

                                                             mjesto u prah

In your final hour                            prijedi sav u zvijezde!

instead of dust

pass whole to the stars!

            –translated by Božica Cvjetković

I wish very much that I knew enough Croatian to translate the poem above myself, but I don't.  Truth?  I literally only know one word of Croatian that I'm sure of: teta/tetka or aunt (depending on whether it's your father's sister or your mother's sister).  It's on my list to learn more.   

Enjoy another picture of General Anton Lipošćak.  I don't think he's an ancestor of mine, though we share a last name and are both Croats.  But even that much is kind of cool.  Here in the States, it's a rather uncommon last name–everyone who carries it is related in at least a distant way.  I don't know how it is in Europe.

General Lipošćak served in the Austro-Hungarian Army in World War One.  He even had a unit named after him, Gruppe Lipošćak.  He died in 1924 at the age of 61.