When I first read Easter, 1916 I really had NO idea what it was talking about other than possibly war as well as what I read in the little bit at the bottom of the first page. After reading it again "a terrible beauty is born" really stood out to me since Yeats says it several times in his poem. I think when he is saying this he is perhaps talking about the people who are fighting for the lives of others as being a beautiful thing in a terrible time. I am not totally sure I am even grasping the concept of it totally. In Rosenberg's poem "Returning, We Hear the Larks" he is talking about pain and sorrow, I think this relates to Yeats poem in the way they are both talking about the pain and death of war. I think that Rosenberg uses more metaphors in his writings in the way of "like a girl's dark hair for she dreams no ruin lies there". There are several others in his poem and they stood out to me more than Yeats poems.
-I found this poem and kind of thought about our creative writing assignment about when I was one and twenty...This is sad one!
Just Twenty One
I read one more report today.
Another flag half-mast and gun
salute, coffin draped, bearers done.
Then hear the last post bugle play
as in my mind I see his grave
stone (father, brother, loving son)
for he who was just twenty one
in asymmetric Afghan frae.
Yet did he hear his comrades call
for medic, medivac and aid,
see the Chinook rotors whir - all
dust, din and dread – confusion reign?
Or did he even feel the fall
as daylight, dreams and future fade?
Well read the prose of marching men -
once Mons, Goose Green, El Alamain,
now Helmand, Lashkar Gah, Sangin -
The soldiers’ sacrifice the same
for Queen and Country. All shall yield
in time, to time, both old and young -
except upon the Battlefield
where he remains just twenty one.
Robert Kiely
No comments:
Post a Comment