Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.-
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

— Wilfred Owen, Dulce Et Decorum Est

I was a Poet!
But I did not know it,
Neither did my Mother,
Nor my Sister nor my Brother.
The Rich were not aware of it;
The Poor took no care of it.
The Reverend Mr. Drewitt
Never knew it.
The High did not suspect it;
The Low could not detect it.
Aunt Sue
Said it was obviously untrue.
Uncle Ned
Said I was off my head:
(This from a Colonial
Was really a good testimonial.)
Still everybody seemed to think
That genius owes a good deal to drink.
So that is how
I am not a poet now,
And why
My inspiration has run dry.
It is no sort of use
To cultivate the Muse
If vulgar people
Can’t tell a village pump from a church steeple.
I am merely apologizing
For the lack of the surprising
In what I write
To-night.
I am quite well-meaning,
But a lot of things are always intervening
Between
What I mean
And what it is said
I had in my head.
It is all very puzzling.
Uncle Ned
Says Poets need muzzling.
He might
Be right.
Good-night!

— Walter Raleigh, Song of Myself

Time wears her not; she doth his chariot guide;
Mortality below her orb is placed.
–Raleigh

The full-orbed moon with unchanged ray
Mounts up the eastern sky,
Not doomed to these short nights for aye,
But shining steadily.

She does not wane, but my fortune,
Which her rays do not bless,
My wayward path declineth soon,
But she shines not the less.

And if she faintly glimmers here,
And paled is her light,
Yet alway in her proper sphere
She’s mistress of the night.

— Henry Thoreau, The Moon

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

— William Butler Yeats, The Lake Isle of Innesfree

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;–then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

— John Keats, When I Have Fears

Buried in a cemetery on Normandy’s hallowed ground
are the remains of many soldiers who faced a crucial test,
and made the supreme sacrifice while invasion bound.
Today, their simple grave sites can be readily found,
Unfortunate victims of the conflict – their grave markers attest.

There were many soldiers on June 6th of 1944 who stood
nervously aboard landing crafts that fateful day,
where many gallant and courageous soldiers constantly would
openly pray and promise to alter their life if they could
while participating in the invasion of Normandy on D-Day.

Everywhere along the beach the enemy artillery shelled
the invading forces with deadly explosives where they lay.
Yet, not many soldiers complained or quailed
when their wounded comrades around them wailed
their death cries in Normandy on D- Day.

On and on the determined and weary forces swept
through the artillery barrage that didn’t wither away.
When the dead and wounded fell, the living stepped,
attempting to charge the enemy’s stronghold which kept
them bogged down on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.

The enemy eventually fell back under pressure at last
by successfully attacking them where their strength lay,
Moving with a sweep of their flanking batteries fast,
and withstanding their constant artillery blast,
Stormed their fortifications in Normandy on D- Day.

There aren’t many soldiers alive today – those who pressed
beside their fellow country men who perished that day –
but the surviving veterans have always confessed
they would prefer to keep tales of their experiences at rest
when they were involved in the invasion of Normandy on D- Day.

The symbolic flags on the gravesites still wave,
and there are occasions when bugles still play,
Where white, permanent crosses on each grave
keep alive the memory of the Nation’s brave
who fought and died in Normandy on D- Day.

— Joseph T. Renaldi, D-Day – Invasion of Normandy