Claude McKay -- "If We Must Die..."
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
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"Ed Gruberman, you fail to grasp Ty Kwan Leap. Approach me, that you might see." -- The Master
There's a bumpersticker I've seen that sort of sums up the poem (although not as poeticly):
Only Pussies Want A Natural Death
=)
I do love the poem tho, especially the last line. Sort of sums up the thoughts of those who have died in any war, or any side -- DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR!
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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Rated 7 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux
-Shel Silverstien
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"I'm not like George Bush. If he wins or loses, life goes on. I will do anything to win." - Al Gore, Newsweek, 1999
CAPTAIN HOOK
Captain Hook must remember
Not to scratch his toes.
Captain Hook must watch out
And never pick his nose.
Captain Hook must be gentle
When he shakes your hand.
Captain Hook must be careful
Openin' sardine cans
And playing tag and pouring tea
And turnin' pages of his book.
Lots of folks I'm glad I ain't--
But mostly Captain Hook!
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Here lies a toppled god,
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.
-Tleilaxu Epigram
At the end, where the Four ex-Musketeers (Depardieu, Byrne, Irons, Malkovich) are trapped in the Bastille, and draw their pistols, knee-capping onrushing Musketeers, then drawing their blades to meet the rest ...
Just as an example of what the author of that poem is talking about, IMHO.
And its got a fantastic score, BTW. Nick Glennie-Smith ... ahhh ...
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Star Trek Gamma Quadrant
Rated 7 out of 10 Smileys by Fabrux
I'll now go ahead and break my own rule. Some of my favorite bits of the English language.
From Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus":
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships,
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
A poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins:
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves, but worse.
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What did it mean to you
An early chat with death
To pull your body for a moment from your soul
--
Camper Van Beethoven
****
Read chapter TWO of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet"! Now with 30% more plot.
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All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl,
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl.
Bob Dylan
During Wind and Rain
They sing their dearest songs--
He, she, all of them--yea,
Treble and tenor and bass.
And one to play;
With the candles mooning each face....
Ah, no; the years O!
How the sick leaves reel down in throngs!
They clear the creeping moss--
Elders and juniors--aye,
Making the pathways neat
And the garden gay;
And they build a shady seat....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
See, the white stormbirds wing across!
They are blithely breakfasting all--
Men and maidens--yea,
Under the summer tree,
With a glimpse of the bay,
While pet fowl come to the knee....
Ah, no; the years O!
And the rotten rose is ripped from the wall.
They change to a high new house,
He, she, all of them--aye,
Clocks and carpets and chairs
On the lawn all day,
And brightest things that are theirs....
Ah, no; the years, the years;
Down their carved names the raindrop plows.
-- Thomas Hardy
This site,
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/96.html
has background information on Hardy and other poets.
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"Investigator of skullduggery,though quite lenient on buggery"
[This message has been edited by Gurgeh (edited November 23, 2000).]
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, -- so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, "There is no memory of him here!"
And so stand stricken, so remembering him!
- Edna St Vincent Millay, "Sonnet"