Behind the Lines by A.A. Milne.
Title: Behind the Lines.
Author: A.A. Milne.
Genre: Poetry, WWII.
Country: England, U.K.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1940.
Summary: A collection of 43 poems written as a diary of the first 9 months of WWII. Deliverance describes the impression upon the announcement of the beginning of WII. Adolf Hitler is a critical portrait of the German dictator. The Third String is a besmirching poem about Rudolf Hess. High Purpose is a poem about Hitler changing his mind and joining hands with Stalin. An Alphabet is an abecedarium in verse about the war. The Portrait Gallery is a parody of German citizens and characters. Black-Out is a poem about the black-outs that were so disturbing and annoying. Hausfrau Speaks is a poem about Mein Kampf and its meaning to the German people. The Sinking of The Winston Churchill is a poem in which Goebbels recounts the torpedoing and sinking of The Winston Churchill of the British Fleet. Song for a Soldier is from a point of view of a young, newly-enlisted soldier, who yearns to win the war for his mother. Unity is a poem about Hitler's meeting with his closest associates, of whom he is not a fan. In War Work, the author suggests how he would move around the local geography to help with the war. Information is a poem about how information and propaganda makes their way through the world. Farewell to Butter is an ode to butter, which was heavily rationed during the war. The Supermen is a mocking poem about the Germans being the Chosen Race. Safety is a humorous poem about safety pacts and their efficacy, the author taking as example recent pacts with Baltic States and the earlier one with Finland and Russia. Par Nobile Fratrum wonders who wold be better, Stalin or Hitler. In The British Communist, the author critiques Communism with the example of Soviet Union, where adherents were required to suddenly and drastically change their allegiances back and forth between vastly different "Communist" leaders. Travel is about the solitude and mystery of traveling with strangers, and not quite being sure when your station is. Class Distinction is a poem about class distinction, and how nothing actually changes after a workers' revolution when capitalism takes the stage. Hoares de Combât is a poem where the author reveals what he would do if he were Prime Minister and had to choose a Cabinet. Excelsior is the author's take on the famous Longfellow poem of the same name, in the context of the war, in which a young man travels through a mountain village at dusk, bearing the banner "Excelsior," and refuses to heed warning and take rest on his way up the mountain. Merry Christmas is a poem about the first Christmas of the war, and trying to keep it merry still. Obsession looks at Winston Churchill from Goebbels's and Germans' point of view, as the causer of all evils. Home Service is about the BBC Home Service, which is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 1st September 1939 and ended on the 29th September 1967. In The Bottle, the author, passing through a humble village, is surprised to stumble on a rare wine bottle only to find out people were saving it to celebrating Hitler's demise. In Weather Report, the author remarks how one of the things he misses most during the war are the weather reports and competing with other regions for worse weather. In Almost a Gentleman, the author mocks the phenomenon as a German "almost gentleman" addresses a typical British one. Sleep No More is the author's wish that Hitler is haunted by all those whose deaths he is responsible for, and is unable to sleep again. The Neutral is a poem about the dangers of political neutrality, and making others establish your values and beliefs for you. Talk is a poem about the author realizing every station on the radio is filled with political war talk and propaganda all over the world. Officers and Gentlemen is a humorous poem about three gentlemen and officers winning the war with the help of marmalade-making and financial finagling. Matilda, the author recalls his disappointment in Norway's occupation by recalling his meeting with an enchanting young lady named Matilda whilst sailing to Norway. Spring Offensive is an allegorical poem about a harsh spring. In Quid Pro Quo, the author defends war taxation, expressing pleasure to be able to contribute in some way, being too old to fight at the front whilst others die. Guests is a poem about refugees, wherein the author expresses they have been more pleasant and welcome company than most of his friends. The Patriot is about a German calmly proceeding to play golf and enjoying life as the war rages on. Old Soldier is a melancholy poem about an a veteran soldier struggling with yet another war, and finding he may not be a soldier any longer. Wishful Thinking is a humorous poem that criticizes those who criticize positive and wishful thinking. The Voice of Italy is a poem about Italy's threats and eventual entry into the war. To America critiques America's refusal to enter the war, and an urging to do so. The Conscientious Objector is a harsh critique of anyone who claims to be one, and an argument that even from a Christian point of view, the stance is not defendable. The Lost Generation praises the generation which was "raised by women" and made fun of during WWI, but went to war to the awe of WWI veterans during WWII.
My rating: 7.5/10
My review:
♥ He spoke, and all the world was still...
He spoke. The people stayed their breath
To learn the Great Dictator's will,
To hear the issue-Peace or Death.
He speaks. The absent mind records
Some faint but well-remembered sound:
A mouse behind the creaking boards,
An apple falling to the ground.
~~Deliverance.
♥ Uneasy Corporal, on whom there lies
No pride of birth, no dignity of mind,
No majesty of soul: for whom no ties
Link you in simple friendship with your kind;
Too low for honour and too high for love,
Cold, solitary, in your eagle's nest,
All Germany below, all Heaven above,
You write your creed beneath your pagan crest:
"All the fair things which homely natures prize,
Faith, Mercy, Gentleness have had their day;
Kindness and Pity are but children's cries
Borne idly on the wind, dying away.
Revenge untaken is revenge abused,
One grudge forgotten is my Honour's shame,
One lie unspoken is a lie misused,
One promise kept dishonours my good name."
Uneasy Corporal, with shambling gait,
Pale hero for a housemaid in her sleep,
Apotheosis of the second-rate,
Even your wickedness is somehow cheap.
In the days before the war, when there were many in England to speak with admiration of Hitler as a Great Man, I used to say that a man who had never once showed magnanimity was a second-rate man, and must always remain a second-rate man. He has remained it.
~~Adolf Hitler.
♥ It is funny how little we knew about Hess when he was appointed next in succession after Goering. He was Hitler's secretary and Yes-man. It is held by some that the real Hitler died a little while ago, and that one of his doubles is now functioning. Others say that it is a man called Schickelgruber who is causing all the trouble. A third school of thought maintains that Hitler is really Goering, and Goering, Hitler. I never know what to believe.
~~from The Third String.
♥ I defined a Liberal once as "a man who hates Communism and Fascism equally." When Hitler and Stalin joined hands, a great many people suddenly discovered that they were Liberals.
~~from High Purpose.
♥ A is an Air-raid precaution. E.g.,
A gas-mask when taking a dip in the sea.
B is my Bicycle. How do you ride it?
I slipped into neutral and say down beside it.
♥ M is the Milkman. He's surer and surer
Each morning that Itler's been shot by the Furer.
N is for Noah. His mine-laying ark
Was torpedoed by Churchill disguised as a shark.
♥ S is for Stalin. The news has come through
That they've made him an Aryan under Rule II.
~~from An Alphabet.
♥ I march along and march along and ask myself each day:
If I should go and lose the war, then what will Mother say?
The Sergeant will be cross and red, the Captain cross and pink,
But all I ever ask myself is, What will Mother think?
♥ I march along and march along and hardly dare to speak
For planning how to finish off the war by Monday week;
For Mother and the Sergeant will be very cross and hot
If we should lose the war because of something I've forgot.
~~from Song for a Soldier.
♥ And Goebbels, Himmler, Frick and Hess,
And Ribbentrop and Ley and-yes,
Stout Goering in his fancy-dress
Arrived to hear him speak.
"My faithful friends," Herr Hitler said-
And wished that one or two were dead
And Goering's neck were not so red-
"My trusty friends and true,
I do not want to make a speech"-
("Mein lieber Gott" said each to each,
And felt for anything in reach)-
"The Time has come to Do!"
"Do whom?" thought Goebbels with a grin.
But Himmler thought he meant "Do in,"
And rather hoped one might begin
With Ribbentrop, the swine.
And Ribbentrop, who felt inside
Exactly what that look implied,
Hummed in a careless way and tried
To think about his wine.
♥ "Good fortune in our fight attends
Brave men who rise to reach their ends
On stepping-stones of their dead friends-
Who dies if Hitler stands?"
And Goebbels in a wild surmise
Kept thinking to himself "Who dies?"
And caught the look in Goering's eyes,
And half put up his hands.
"Be rich in action, rich in deed,
And suit the action to the need;
Be rich in faith that men succeed
Who take the lonely way.
Be rich, not gaudy." With an oath
The faithful Goering, who was both,
Scowled at Herr Hess who, nothing loth,
Scowled at the faithful Ley.
♥ And suddenly his voice
Rose to a maddened shout:
"Be off! Your faces make me sick!
And Goering's neck is much too thick!
It's bad enough to look at Frick,
But Ribbentrop-! Get out!"
~~from Unity.
♥ It may so be (one never knows)
My readers are a brainless lot-
There is a brainlessness which shows
And one which, luckily, does not.
So who can tell? In English, then,
Devoid of passion, anger, haste,
The words come starkly off my pen:
One cannot argue about taste.
♥ The nearness of a farmyard Drake
(Or is this asking much too much?)
Might by a natural mistake
Provide the necessary touch.
More likely that some swallow sings
Sea-shanties to the brooding cow,
From which sweet harmony there springs
The flavour-but I know not how.
♥ Farewell to Butter! Strange and sad
How little now it means to me.
To ration it is but to add
Fresh insult to deep injury.
Keep, keep your slab of vaseline-
Be it four ounces or a pound,
I give it to the War Machine
To make its silly wheels go round.
~~from Farewell to Butter.
♥ God gave to men of German birth
Authority to rule the earth.
We are-you see it in our face-
The one authentic Chosen Race.
In all the world you will not find
The equal of the German mind.
It puzzles strangers to explain
The wonder of the German brain;
They could not possibly suspect
Such overwhelming intellect.
We have the other virtues too:
We're brave, hard-working, faithful, true;
Our strength of purpose is profound,
Our bodies as our minds are sound.
No grace without, no grace within,
But is of German origin.
We are-it is our German creed-
A race of supermen indeed.
♥ The Chosen Race! Thank God that we
Have no Divine authority.
We're men; and old enough to vote,
To turn, if so we wish, our coat,
Remain at work, or go on strike,
Say what we like to whom we like,
Distinguish between Jews and Jews,
Believe or disbelieve the news,
Switch on, and then switch off, the tireless
Romancer on the German wireless.
It's nice to be a simple man,
And not a super-Aryan.
It's pleasanter to be adult
Than reverence the Siegfried cult.
I'm glad my uncolossal brain
Won't take me back to school again.
I'm glad that I can write this verse
Without authority from Nurse.
~~from The Supermen.
♥ I'm fixing up a Friendly Pact
Of Firm and Mutual Assistance,
By which, if Russia is attacked,
I watch from a respectful distance;
And Russia, if one threatens me,
Says "Fancy that!" and "Oh, I see."
~~from Safety.
♥ When Lenin first at Heaven's command
Arose from some Swiss hiding-place,
And, taking Trotsky by the hand,
Crossed Germany by German grace,
Then Holy Russia thanks to them
became the New Jerusalem.
These Heavenly Twins were now my gods,
And daily in the larger parks
I faced the most unpleasing odds
To preach the gospel of St. Marx.
Who trusts in Trotsky can defy
A ripe tomato in the eye.
My trust, it seemed, was premature;
Something occurred, I don't know what.
Whoever was the Simon Pure,
Trotsky was definitely not.
Lenin became Utopia's hub,
And Trotsky plain Beelzebub.
It followed that in some degree
This doubt assailed me in the night:
If Trotsky is the Boorjwarzee,
Then Lenin isn't always right
Who for so long was never chary at
Proclaiming him the Proletariat.
But when I'd got the facts arranged,
I faced the future undismayed.
I saw that Trotsky must have changed,
Which showed how right Our Lenin stayed.
"Lenin is always right!" I shouted,
And wondered how I could have doubted.
So, later, when Our Stalin came,
I did not hesitate for long:
A god by any other name
Is as incapable of wrong:
And just as soon as Lenin died
"Stalin is always right!" I cried.
When generals were shot in squads,
Was I in doubt again? Not I!
They'd bowed the knee to German gods,
Were traitors and deserved to die.
I spoke of Rats in league with Foxes
In various parks, on various boxes.
And when Our Stalin bowed the knee
To those same gods, the Russian rat
Became, from being boorjwarzee,
Completely proletariat,
And German foxes, as I saw,
Were communists by Nature's law.
So all is well, and Stalin's right
And will be right until he's dead,
And black is obviously white
And each alternatively red;
A helpful creed, whose only hitch
Is knowing when the one is which.
No longer now I try to weigh
The rights and wrongs of this and that,
But leave the Thinking for the Day
To some far distant Autocrat,
And lie in bed and wait to learn
When Father wants us all to turn.
And if the traitor Trotsky got
His second wind and came along
And had the gentle Stalin shot,
Stalin, I'd know at once, was wrong;
And Trotsky would receive the whole
Subservience of my mind and soul.
~~The British Communist.
♥ Was it, I wondered, kind to its relations?
Did it, I wondered, love its fellow-men?...
I wondered even more about the stations
We stopped at now and then.
One would be mine one day; now how to know it?
Heard station-names are sweet, but those unheard
And unillumed are hell-or so the poet
(Keats, I believe) inferred.
We stopped. A form vacated the compartment.
Somehow it knew that this was Hadley Wood
(Or Hurstpierpoint). Some quickening at the heart meant
"Go while the going's good."
~~from Travel.
♥ He walked to work on summer days,
On winter days he took the train.
His "Betters" went their busy ways
In motor-cars; but he was fain
To trudge upon his own, or stand,
Strap-hanging, on another's feet-
Not without dust (in summer), and
(In winter) without heat.
And all the time the thing he hates
Is class-distinction's ugly sham;
For class-distinction separates
The automobile from the tram,
And Norman blood from simple trust
That when these class-distrinctions go,
Then no one trudges in the dust,
Nor shivers at the snow.
The Revolution came to pass
And ugly class-distinctions went;
With only one surviving class
So much at least was evident;
And "Gentlemen" who took their ease,
"Employers" who employed their wits,
And all "Capitalists" like these
Drove no more to the Ritz.
So "Workers" blessed their lucky star,
And hugged this comfort to their souls:
That Stalin had the caviare
And Comrade Hitler had the Rolls,
That Goebbels had the country seat
Where lovely jewelled ladies shone,
That Revolution was complete
And class-distinction gone.
* * *
He walks to work on summer days,
On winter days he takes the train.
His "Leaders" go their lordly ways
In motor-cars; but he is fain
To trudge upon his own, or stand
Strap-hanging, on another's feet-
Not without dust in summer, and
In winter without heat.
..The answer is that every war is a Class war in the sense that it is a war between contending classes of men, distinguished by nationality, philosophy or religion. The pretence of the Communist is that the only antagonism which is worth maintaining is that between the social classes (Gentlemen v. Players-or, rather, Workers); and that Utopia can only be reached by the extermination of one of the classes. Whether it comforts a man who is being beaten up to know that anyhow the man with the rubber truncheon is no gentleman either, or alternatively that both of them are, I do not know. But I do know that as long as there are political prisons there will be a Class inside and a Class outside; as long as there is less than a car a family, there will be a Class driving and a Class being run down; and that this is Class Distinction.
~~Class Distinction.
♥ Pile on the logs, the wind is chill,
But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still. *
* This verse, I ought to say, is not
My own unaided work, I got
A hint or two from Walter Scott.
~~from Merry Christmas.
♥ Goebbels, thou shouldst be lying at this hour-
Get busy, Goebbels; greet the glad New Year,
Not with a face that makes the milk turn sour,
But one that brings fresh bubbles to the beer;
Smile, and step smartly to the microphone
And give the boys a good one: all your own.
♥ Who is Silvia? What is she
That the Jews have bought her?
Silvia is known to be
Winston Churchill's daughter.
She is now a British spy
With a most come-hither eye,
And the length of Silvia's lashes
Causes all those railway crashes.
Who gassed the Princes in the Tower and starved them by blockade?
Who put the nitro-glycerine in Borgia's lemonade?
Who sank the schooner Hesperus? And why and why and why
Did all of Thomas Moore's gazelles mysteriously die?
Whose was the most unkindest cut in Caesar's Sunday suit?
And who deliberately made the rift within the lute?
Who trained the asp to coil itself in Cleopatra's lunch?
Who poisons little children's minds with ribald verse in Punch?
Research has found the answer. All these innocents have bled
To satisfy the lust of Winston Churchill's Uncle Fred.
~~from Obsession.
♥ It's commonly accepted by
The thoughtful jurist (such as I)
That punishment should fit the time,
The circumstances and the crime.
The facts, the local situation,
Demand profound consideration
Before the jurist can begin
To calculate the price of sin.
But we distinguish as a rule
Between the villain and the fool;
And since, by general accord,
True virtue is its own reward,
So folly may itself provide
Such sentence as should be applied.
♥ And if they thoughtfully instal
Death penalty by axe for all
Who have (and boast about it) "RHYTHM,"
Then I am definitely with 'em.
~~from Home Service.
♥ There is a well-house by the cottage door,
A plain small house, devoid of decoration;
And visitors who have not been before,
Mistaking it for "outside sanitation,"
Avert the head politely, till we tell
The silly creatures that it is a well.
♥ On the upper shelf
A bottle gleamed. I saw it there myself.
It was the true, the blushful Bollinger!
(Blushing to find itself down here in war-time)
And '29, the vintage I prefer,
But in the country had not known aforetime.
"Who's drinking this?" I cried. "And when?" I said.
The answer came: "Why, Us-when Hitler's dead."
And suddenly I saw in every cot
And every castle people celebrating
In Beer or Bollinger (it mattered not)
The Day for which a heart-sick world is waiting.
"The Beast is dead!" a million voices shout.
"Where is the bottle? Bring that bottle out!"
One would have liked another bottle for Mussolini, but perhaps he is hardly important enough.
~~from The Bottle.
♥ The war has spoilt a lot of things:
We're full of "rights" and "wrongs;"
And almost everybody sings
The most appalling songs;
But what infuriates me most
Is simply that I've lost
The opportunity to boast
About my "record" frost.
For in the happy days of old
One scanned the news to see
If Littlehampton were as cold,
Or Looe as hot, as we.
But now comparison is gone-
Not least of Hitler's crimes
Is that he put the kybosh on
The weather in The Times.
..I crack the still unrationed egg,
I carve the rationed ham,
I know it's cold in Winnipeg
And cold in Amsterdam;
I munch the sparsely-buttered toast,
I stir the tasteless tea,
But know not (what intrigues me most)
The min. at Brightlingsea.
The home thermometer went down
To 4; it really did.
Can Colchester or Camden Town
Produce a lower bid?
Thermometers at Heckmondwike
Of similar design-
Can they show mins. remotely like
This minimum of mine?
Penarth and Peebles, what of them?
They have their frosty spells;
And doubtless it is "cold A.M."
At Troon and Tunbridge Wells;
It may be that at Aldershot
A heat-wave has begun.
I doubt it. But it matters not-
The war has spoilt the fun.
~~from Weather Report.
♥ Dear Reader (may I call you Friend?),
I've asked the Editor to lend
His columns to me. Please attend.
I am a plain bluff man-the sort
You British call a "perfect sport,"
An "English gentleman," in short:
Who shoots the fox, and hunts the boar,
And keeps the beaters in a roar
With jokes they may have heard before;
Who likes his glass, but not beyond
The second bottle, and is fond
Of pretty women (mostly blonde);
An honest man, devoid of craft,
Who's lived for sport, and loved and laughed;
A man of substance-fore and aft;
Such as an Englishman would term an
"Awfully good feller for a German"-
Thar's yours sincerely. Call me Hermann.
~~from Almost a Gentleman.
♥ You have not slept? Why should you sleep
When all the unrequited dead
Rise from their lowly graves to keep
A nightly vigil round your bed?
Heil Hitler! These who seem to live
Are those you scourged and crucified.
Their faces frighten you? Forgive
Their faces-that is how they died;
Heil Hitler! And the hand that falls
Is ugly with unhealing scars
From scratching "Justice!" on the walls,
From beating at the prison bars.
Heil Hitler! From a conquered land
They come to herald you, for whom
A hundred thousand crosses stand
To mark your German "living room."
Heil Hitler! On the air is borne
That doleful, thin, unending cry
Of women from their homesteads torn
And left in frozen fields to die.
They rise from long-forgotten graves,
They fill the shadows round your bed,
Dead souls of all your living slaves,
The living souls of all your dead.
How should you sleep? That ghostly wake
Will hold you till the long night ends
(Heil Hitler!) and the shadows take
The likeness of familiar friends.
They greet you. They have served you well:
The bully, the corrupted youth,
The lackey with no soul to sell,
The pygmy who has murdered Truth.
~~Sleep No More.
♥ No autocrat requires to fear
The things he doesn't wish to hear;
What only matters is to say
"Pom! Pom!" and have them shout "Hooray!"
So when a great decision rests,
Not poised within a million breasts,
But on the will of one alone,
It's nice to know the will's your own;
And, once decided, nicer still
To know it's now The People's Will.
And if the issue's "Peace or War,
And Which Side are we Fighting For?"
The Autocrat's importance thrives
From toying with a million lives,
From seeing that a nation's soul
Is fixed upon his chosen goal.
♥ So, when the Great Decision comes,
And men fall in behind the drums,
And music sets their hearts aflame
To fight, and die, for-whatsitsname?
Then may no warrior forget
The cause on which his soul is set;
May none, anointed for the fight,
Cry vaguely "God defend the Right-
Or possibly the Left," because
He can't remember which it was.
~~from The Neutral.
♥ Wherever I stayed the needle,
However remote the shore,
A face would whinny and wheedle,
A face would bellow and roar.
I could picture it flushed and sweating,
I pictured it tense and white,
I said "And I wouldn't mind betting
It's just what he said last night."
A hundred vehement faces,
Sallow and flushed and fat,
Telling you what the case is
For this and the other and that...
And every night at eleven,
As sound streams up to the skies,
Truth listens-in from Heaven
And climbs on her Cross, and dies.
~~from Talk.
♥ When this first appeared, I was accused by two or three people of "attacking Jews." This was only because one of the characters was "a gentleman called Judah." I had hoped that nobody was called Judah. It is admirable, and yet rather pathetic, this feeling which Jews have about each other: that an attack on one of them is an attack on all of them. Chartered accountants never feel like this about chartered accountants. A dramatic critic did once write that all dramatic critics were unprejudiced and intelligent (I don't know where he got the idea from), but even he wouldn't resent it as an insult to his calling, if an imaginary critic were depicted as a wife-beater. Anyway, these verses are not an attack on Jews, but an attack on lice.
~~from Officers and Gentlemen.
♥ So, therefore, we proceed to sing,
Without a "By your leave" or "Pardon,"
About the most offensive spring
Which occupies the garden.
There is, of course, a Spring as sung
By poets in immortal song
Too much recited by the young,
With all the intonations wrong;
A Spring which, in the poet's mind,
Is always (somehow) doing nicely;
The one which isn't far behind
If Winter comes. Precisely.
~~from Spring Offensive.
♥ Tax every hair on my head, and I'll simply
Swamp it with lotions to nourish its pores;
Tax every pimple, I'll try to go pimply-
Anything, Simon, you want shall be yours.
Does this seem odd to you? Well, I'll be frank, you
Mustn't suppose that I'm touched in the head.
No. It is just that I've got to say thank you...
I am still living-and others are dead.
Younger and better men day after day go
Proud to their destiny. As for myself,
Sheer middle-age and a touch of lumbago
Keep me in safety at home on the shelf.
Others are fighting, and Death, ever present,
Swoops from the sky and spouts up from the seas...
What can I do? I can pay and look pleasant.
Tax me, good Simon, as much as you please.
~~from Quid Pro Quo.
♥ Paid guests are sweet, but those unpaid are sweeter:
True hospitality is "uncontrolled."
Here in the wilds our lives will be completer
With friends we chose, and loved, in days of old.
~~from Guests.
♥ A pinch of salt (or so I've heard)
Will make the stoutest slug go limp.
"Red" is the operative word
Which paralyses Colonel Blimp.
A symbol with a piece of chalk
Stops Leghorns from so much as blinking...
And I'm immobilised by talk
Day in, day out, of "Wishful Thinking."
I hope tomorrow will be fine.
I hope that no one comes to tea.
I hope this little verse of mine
Is better than it seems to be.
And, if it is, I hope it brings
Some golden guineas for the chinking...
In fact, I hope a lot of things
Now stigmatised as Wishful Thinking.
I think our airmen simply grand,
I think that we shall win the war-
As far as I can understand
It's this that we are fighting for.
♥ A politician, meaning well,
But, like a politician, fond
Of silly phrases, tripped and fell
Head first into our village pond.
I rushed to help him with a shout,
I bellowed, as I saw him sinking,
"Hold up, old man, I'll get you out"...
"Don't! Don't!" he begged. "It's Wishful Thinking."
(So I didn't.)
~~from Wishful Thinking.
♥ I think that greater unhappiness has been caused by the word "realistic." A "realistic attitude to the world" is an attitude which discounts all sentiment, all ideals, all art, all literature, all beauty; which, in fact, discounts all that makes life worth living. The "realist" inhabits an utterly unreal world, such as never existed; yet imagines that he alone is seeing the world as it is. If Mussolini, that arch-realist, were indeed a realist instead of an overgrown, sentimental schoolboy, he would realize the truth about Italy; which is that her contribution to civilisation always has been and always will be Beauty; not a goose-step imported from Germany, and "the song of our machine-guns."
~~from The Voice of Italy.
♥ Well, are you coming in?
It's a fight between Good and Evil,
It's a fight between God and the Devil.
Where do you stand today?
Which are you for? You have chosen, yes,
But is it enough for men to bless
The men who fight, and to turn away?
Is it enough for women to cry,
And to say "Poor things" when the innocent die?
Is it enough to give your prayers,
And then-go back to your own affairs?
It's a fight for all that you counted dear,
It's a fight for all that you fought to win;
The fight is on, and the issue clear:
Good or Evil,
God or the Devil...
Well, are you coming in?
Yes, "War is Hell."
But Peace is hell if it's Peace with the Devil in power.
Yet, if this is not your quarrel and not your hour,
If you have chosen peace, you have chosen well.
But scatter your armies, burn your ships,
Tear the breech-block out of the gun;
Never again can you fight who fight not now,
No rallying-call can ever rise to your lips,
There lives no Faith to which you can make your vow.
There is no Cause to fight for: only the one,
Only one gage of battle, only one battle-song:
Right against Wrong.
~~from To America.
♥ Your Conscience is "against" the war?
So let it be. But what's it "for"?
The Peace which the Gestapo brings:
The triumph of all evil things:
Compassion, Honour, Mercy, Truth,
As practised by the Hitler Youth:
Instruction formally designed
To prostitute the infant mind,
To wean from pastor and from priest
Potential for a super-Beast.
Your Conscience is against the war...
Are these the things it's praying for?
Your Conscience thinks that War should cease;
But finds no fault with German peace,
Accepting with a careless nod
The kingdom of its anti-God.
It minds not who seduces whom
If, safe within its narrow room,
It still can hug itself and say
"We took no part in war today";
It will not mind who lost, who won,
So long as you have fired no gun.
Thus does your Conscience firmly stand
Smug in its faith, complacent, bland,
And say to Heaven "Observe me, Lord,
Your follower who drew no sword.
Then let me, from all evil freed,
For all the guilty intercede:
The wicked ones who fought to save
Your world of Beauty from the grave;
The falsely-led who overthrew
The blatant gods the heathen knew;
The ignorant who, unafraid,
Dies in that ultimate Crusade.
For when I saw the Devil plain,
I said benignly 'Let him reign,'
And watched, religiously aloof,
The world beneath his cloven hoof.
And weaker men were led to fight
For what they misconceived as Right,
But I, O Lord, was not as they;
I knew Your will and turned away."
Most of the many letters which I have had from conscientious objectors in answer to these lines have insisted that they do not condemn the unconscientious fighter, and do hope that we shall win the war. But, as one said in verse:
We too would strive nor count the cost,
And know the battle can't be lost
If we but use the arms of Love,
With Hope and Courage from above...
The way that will not use the sword
Is that of Jesus Christ our Lord.
So, when we have won, who takes the credit? The thirty thousand who have used the arms of Love, or the three million who have used other arms? Do the thirty thousand say "There you are! I told you Love was the only way," or do hey admit that, without the British Navy, Army and Air Force, Love would have left them in a concentration camp with nothing bu a dehumanised sadist to practise on? In either case, since we shall all share the fruits of Victory, Freedom, the Conscientious Objector is in the position of the man who says to his family: "Although we are in danger of starvation, my conscience does not allow me to steal. But I do not reproach you for stealing, since your conscience does allow you to. So I hope you will be thoroughly successful in your efforts tonight, and then we can all have a good meal."
Finally, I think that there is a difference between refusing to "use the sword" to defend oneself, and refusing to use it to defend the innocent and helpless. I cannot believe that, if Christ in His journeys had come across a sadist torturing a child, he would have been content to preach a parable. The Conscientious Objector does believe this.
~~The Objector.
♥ We stood in front of the fireplace and eased our stiffening hocks
(We who had fought in Flanders, we who had flown in France)
And damned the whole generation-you and your girlish locks!-
Poor effeminate creatures, boys who had had no chance.
We pitied you more than blamed you; what could you hope to be,
Born to the fear of war by frightened women, and then
Living your life with women whose men were over the sea?
Taught to be men by women-how could you grow to be men?
Youth of the Lost Generation, sons of the men that were,
Taught to be men by women who made you all that you are,
How could you grow to be men, who have grown to be gods of the Air,
Who have set in the skies for our nerving a flame of Faith like a star?
Each night we crouch by the fireplace, and listen with tight-held breath,
Humbled to tears in wonder, strengthened to tears in pride,
As the Youth which we dared to pity makes casual date with Death,
And, fired by a spirit we know not, goes off on its deathless ride.
With which salute to brave men I close. It is June now; one of those lovely, still, country evenings, blue and green and golden; such an evening as almost compels faith in the doubting, courage in the fearful, by the calm assurance of its beauty. Italy is in the war. France has fallen. Well, we are alone. Much will have happened before these words are in print, but, be it good or ill, may we live and die as gallantly, as those happy few, upheld by something of their spirit.
~~from The Lost Generation.