Lest we forget...

[oursin]

Since this is going around:
Rudyard Kipling, from 'Epitaphs of the War':

COMMON FORM
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.

A DEAD STATESMAN
I could not dig: I dared not rob

Comments

[callunav]

Thank you.

Of all the posts written and quotes posted today because of what today is, this one may mean the most to me.

[oursin]

Thank you.
The first one strikes me as particularly painful in the light of Kipling's pulling strings, if not actually lying, in order to get his extremely myopic son a commission. His son did not survive.

[sam_t]

Ouch ouch ouch.

[headgardener]

Encompasses the contradictions in Kipling: the Dead Statesman and Hindu Sepoy could be quoted today by ardent left-wingers as anti-war taunts to Blair (or Bush): flawlessly right-on. But The Coward and Bombed In London are in his right-wing militaristic Flag-flapper mode...

[oursin]

I find The Coward strikes a note of compassion (though possibly I'm influenced by some sympathetic depictions of shellshock in the stories): but I wouldn't look to Kipling for the epitaph on 'CO dead after being beaten up by jingoistic thugs', it's true.

[oursin]

There is an amazing intro to the Penguin Classics edition of Kim by Edward Said, who was obviously immense fan in spite of everything.