The Poppy Fields {part 1}

Photos

The Poppy Fields {part 1}

see larger image

uploaded by The Anglo American

• 

  uploaded by The Anglo American | add comment

• 

  uploaded by The Anglo American | add comment

• 

  uploaded by The Anglo American | add comment

• 

  uploaded by The Anglo American | add comment

If you walk around any town in the UK this week you will find a large number of people wearing paper red flowers on their jackets and coats. These flowers, poppies, mark Remembrance Sunday, which is similar to the US Memorial day. But there is no holiday to the British event and this Sunday will be a somber reminder of those valiant young men and women who died defending their country in the two World Wars. Central London will come to a complete halt as a large procession of retired servicemen, women and dignitaries march to the Cenotaph Memorial. Among them will be the Queen herself.  Wreaths will be laid and a two minute silence is observed by all present at 1100 hours GMT. The oldest soldier to attend, who fought in the 1914-18 War, will be 111.

   This display of poppies are a reminder of the fields of poppies found on one of Europe’s historical battlefields found in France, know as the Somme. They are still covered with these bright red flowers. The Battle of the Somme started in July1st. 1916 and lasted four months. The British lost 400,000 troops. It is almost beyond human comprehension to take in, that 60,000 of those troops died on the first day. Most had no combat experience at all. The French lost 200,000 troops and the Germans 500,000, all lost in a few months. This loss of life in this battle cast a bigger shadow over Europe than WW1 itself or any war since. The brutality and the futility of this battle is engrained in the D&A of all Europeans. It was a stalemate in a war that reason had abandoned at its inception in 1914.If today’s politicians are frustrated by Europe’s reluctance to consider or support war, they would do well to look at The Battle of the Somme to understand why.
 
This poem is for the 10 million troops who lost their lives in the 1914-18 War.   

The Death-Bed

He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep.
Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

Someone was holding water to his mouth.
He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot
The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
Water—calm, sliding green above the weir.
Water—a sky-lit alley for his boat,
Bird- voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers
And shaken hues of summer; drifting down,
He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,
Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.
Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars
Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;
Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,
Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.

Rain—he could hear it rustling through the dark;
Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;
Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers
That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps
Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace,
Gently and slowly washing life away.

He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain
Leapt like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore
His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.
But someone was beside him; soon he lay
Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.
And death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.

Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He's young; he hated War; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?

But death replied: 'I choose him.' So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

The Anglo American.