headscratcher4
31st March 2008, 12:08 PM
My father-in-law is a rare book collector. Over the weekend he showed me his latest find...a volume of poetry by George S. Patton. Who Gnu (brown shoe)?
Here are two samples (prepare to be moved):
WIGGLERS
1921
You can't remember, dearest
For your memory fades too fast,
The beginning of our loving
In the warm and foggy past.
When vapor from the tepid sea
Hung ever in the air,
And rivulets of pinkish mud
Went trickling past us there.
No, you can't remember even
Of the later lukewarm time
When you and I were wigglers,
Wiggling in the pale gray slime.
When our mouths were all our reason
And our bellies all our soul,
When we bred and died and rotted,
By the billion on the shoal.
Yet for ever and forever,
As the cooling waters flow
Past the green of long dead coal fields
Past the continents of snow.
Yes, forever and as truly
As the waters changeless are,
Have I fought for, sought and found thee
As tonight beneath the star.
Ever fearing, ever hoping
Ever winning thee at last,
But to lose thee to regain thee,
In the present from the past.
DEAD PALS
??
Dickey, we've trained and fit and died,
Yes, drilled and drunk and bled,
And shared our chuck and our bunks in life.
Why part us now we're dead?
Would I rot so nice away from you,
Who has been my pal for a year?
Will Gabriel's trumpet waken me,
If you ain't there to hear?
Will a parcel of bones in a wooden box
Remind my Ma of me?
Or isn't it better for her to think
Of the kid I used to be?
It's true some preacher will get much class
A tellin' what guys we've been,
So, the fact that we're not sleeping with pals,
Won't cut no ice for him.
They'll yell, "Hurrah!"
And every spring they'll decorate our tomb,
But we'll be absent at the spot
We sought, and found, our doom.
The flags and flowers won't bother us,
Our free souls will be far --
Holdin' the line in sunny France
Where we died to win the war.
Fact is, we need no flowers and flags
For each peasant will tell his son,
"Them graves on the hill is the graves of
Yanks, Who died to lick the Hun."
And instead of comin' every spring
To squeeze a languid tear,
A friendly people's loving care
Will guard us all the year.
Here are two samples (prepare to be moved):
WIGGLERS
1921
You can't remember, dearest
For your memory fades too fast,
The beginning of our loving
In the warm and foggy past.
When vapor from the tepid sea
Hung ever in the air,
And rivulets of pinkish mud
Went trickling past us there.
No, you can't remember even
Of the later lukewarm time
When you and I were wigglers,
Wiggling in the pale gray slime.
When our mouths were all our reason
And our bellies all our soul,
When we bred and died and rotted,
By the billion on the shoal.
Yet for ever and forever,
As the cooling waters flow
Past the green of long dead coal fields
Past the continents of snow.
Yes, forever and as truly
As the waters changeless are,
Have I fought for, sought and found thee
As tonight beneath the star.
Ever fearing, ever hoping
Ever winning thee at last,
But to lose thee to regain thee,
In the present from the past.
DEAD PALS
??
Dickey, we've trained and fit and died,
Yes, drilled and drunk and bled,
And shared our chuck and our bunks in life.
Why part us now we're dead?
Would I rot so nice away from you,
Who has been my pal for a year?
Will Gabriel's trumpet waken me,
If you ain't there to hear?
Will a parcel of bones in a wooden box
Remind my Ma of me?
Or isn't it better for her to think
Of the kid I used to be?
It's true some preacher will get much class
A tellin' what guys we've been,
So, the fact that we're not sleeping with pals,
Won't cut no ice for him.
They'll yell, "Hurrah!"
And every spring they'll decorate our tomb,
But we'll be absent at the spot
We sought, and found, our doom.
The flags and flowers won't bother us,
Our free souls will be far --
Holdin' the line in sunny France
Where we died to win the war.
Fact is, we need no flowers and flags
For each peasant will tell his son,
"Them graves on the hill is the graves of
Yanks, Who died to lick the Hun."
And instead of comin' every spring
To squeeze a languid tear,
A friendly people's loving care
Will guard us all the year.