Monday, May 29, 2023

Memorial Day

As is our custom, a poem from Wilfred Owen.  

This poem was incorporated into the matchless epic "War Requiem" of Benjamin Britten.  You will find it in the "Lacrymosa" (crying) section of the Dies Irae.

Futility

Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields half-sown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke once the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

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