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.
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