Armed Forces Day

 

1. Suicide in the Trenches

   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.

   Siegfried Sassoon 1886-1967

   Posted by Phoenix       05/21/2005  at  06:10 PM  



2. Breathes there the man with soul so dead
   Who never to himself hath said,
   This is my own, my native land!
   Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
   As home his footsteps he hath turned
   From wandering on a foreign strand?
   If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
   For him no minstrel raptures swell;
   High though his titles, power, and pelf,
   The wretch, concentred all in self,
   Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
   And, doubly dying, shall go down
   To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
   Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

   --Sir Walter Scott

   Posted by Tannenberg       05/22/2005  at  12:06 AM  

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