Peace
May 1st, 2008 at 12:01am Mark Noonan
A poem by Rupert Brooke:
Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there’s no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart’s long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.
Entry Filed under: Literature
6 Comments
1. middlefinger | May 1st, 2008 at 1:41 am
My goodness, as one floats in a hedonistic gluttonous self indulgent escape from reality, one becomes even more pious, doesn’t one?
2. clark smith | May 1st, 2008 at 2:42 am
“The Damned Ship”
by Rupert Brooke
(The opening lines, as read on the M*A*S*H episode “Springtime” [Season 3, Episode 6, Original air date October 15, 1974] by Radar O’Reilly, just before he was “slaked” by nurse Simmons.)
THE DAMNED ship lurched and slithered. Quiet and quick
[...] I knew
I must think hard of something, or be sick …”
3. OperationChaos | May 1st, 2008 at 6:00 am
Ahhh, two more weeks and I’ll be away from the kooks.
Of course, there’s plenty of kookery in England…
4. Canadian Observer | May 1st, 2008 at 8:40 am
Of course, there’s plenty of kookery in England
3. OperationChaos | May 1st, 2008 at 6:00 am
Unlike the U.S., keefer, England, embraces their eccentrics.
It is not considered ‘unpatriotic’ to express dissatisfaction with government policies; nor is there a requirement for everyone to fit the same mold.
America is touted as being the land of the free but in fact when an individual dare speak his or her mind they are attacked and vilified if the ideas expressed are in any way critical of U.S. policy.
Hope you have a wonderful stay in England, keefer, and you come away with a better understanding of the human condition and a kinder and kookier outlook.
5. middlefinger | May 1st, 2008 at 6:45 pm
And America is not only a wee bit brighter without you, it will smell better too.
Now, will you convince Noonan, Margolis, and Jeremiah to follow suit?
One can only wish.
6. Dennis | May 2nd, 2008 at 4:28 am
Siren
by Dirck Swensen
Beware the scathing beauty,
keeper of the black and hungry pit.
Bound by cruel appetite to duty—
look not, dare not cross her subtle wit!
That siren knows me well, but as a fool.
It’s her unwitting minions think
that I’m a better man, and one who’ll
never know the sweet and deadly anguish
of feet that totter on that brink.
Though mind be fixed on splendid notions
and force of will be stern enough to crack the stone
her music plays these traitorous emotions
like a broken, howling instrument
and compels with sterner will, her own.
Ah! sweet dissembling voice that beckons,
Leave me, stay there in your place!
For between us I’m the one who reckons
yet with destiny and grace.