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Come on... post it... you know you want to...
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!
------------------ "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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Lazy Lazy Lazy Lazy Lazy Lazy Lazy Lazy Jane. She wants a drink, so she waits and waits and waits and waits and waits and waits and waits for it to rain.
-Shel Silverstien
------------------ "I'm not like George Bush. If he wins or loses, life goes on. I will do anything to win." - Al Gore, Newsweek, 1999
Dani
Naboo Handmaiden Ex-Part-Time Admin
Member # 57
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I love Shel Silverstien! I read "Where the Sidewalk Ends" countless times in elementary school, and it was ALWAYS out of the library, you were lucky if it ever made it onto the shelf. Here's a peice of childhood lore...
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Actually, that poem that First posted reminded me a lot of the climax of "MAN IN THE IRON MASK" (the one with Gabriel Byrne?)
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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To avoid copyright issues, it might be best just to quote your absolute favorite bit of your favorite poem.
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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Can't get better than this one by Thomas Hardy. Quality.
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.
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Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want him at the shrinking of the tide; The old snows melt from every mountain-side, And last year's leaves are smoke in every lane; But last year's bitter loving must remain Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide!
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!
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