Today, during lab meeting, Katherine (as always) read a poem that fit the day. She chose what is considered the quintessential American war poem - an excerpt from the Pulitzer Prize-winning John Brown's Body (1928) by Stephen Vincent Benét . Although written about the Civil War, as we sat around the table today everyone remarked about how timeless this poem was in expression. As someone raised a pacifist, I still have trouble understanding (comprehending?) war. Perhaps that is good...but perhaps it is also unfair. Perhaps it doesn't matter.
An Excerpt from John Brown's Body by Stephen Vincent Benet
Look at that column well, as it passes by,
Remembering Bull Run and the cocksfeather hats,
The congressmen, the raw militia brigades
Who went to war with a flag and a haircloth trunk
In bright red pants and ideals and ignorance,
Ready to fight like picture-postcard boys
While fighting still had banners and a sword
And just as ready to run in blind mob-panic....
These men were once those men. These men are the soldiers,
Good theives, good fighters, excellent foragers,
The grumbling men who dislike to be killed in war
And yet will hold when the raw militia break
And live where the raw militia needlessly die,
Having been schooled to that end.
The school is not
A pretty school. They wear no cocksfeather hats.
Some men march in their drawers and their stocking feet.
They have handkerchiefs round their heads, they are footsore
and chafed,
Their faces are sweaty leather.
And when they pass
The little towns where the people wish them godspeed,
A few are touched by the cheers and the crying women
But most have seen a number of crying women,
And heard a number of cheers.
Comments