HENRY V

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or stop the wall up with the English dead!
In peace there's naught that so becomes mankind
As stillness, as serene humility;
But when war's harsh, bald flash flares in an eye,
Then emulate a panther's fearsome strength;
Be stiff of sinew, beckon all the blood,
Give ev'ry eye a horrifying view,
Have breath held hard, have head and hand held high,
Stretch nostrils wide. Assail the dogs then, lads!
Be never dread-fill'd, England's avid men!
I see you strain like greyhounds in the stalls -
The game's afoot: and so, upon this charge
Roar 'God for Harry! England and Saint George!'

-- William Shakespeare, Henry V, III, i

THE ANTHEM OF DEAD MALE YOUTH

What funeral-knell have they who die as cattle?
None save the violent anger of the gun.
None save those chattering rifles' rapid rattle
Dared patter through a hasty orison.
No music rang here; never prayers or bells,
No sombre, mourning voices save the choirs, -
The harsh, demented, hard, high-shrieking shells;
The bugle signals in sad, far-off shires.

What candle may be held to speed them all?
Why, in no treble's hand but in his eye
Dares shine a slight reflection of good-bye.
Girls' ashen faces are a badge, a pall;
A wreath - the tenderness in shaded minds,
And every dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

-- Wilfred Owen, Anthem for Doomed Youth

FUNERAL

Gently together to the Gulf of Arabs
Each day dead sailor convoys come;
Fetched from shallows, interred in burrows:
He treads the heavy sand on the tomb.

Here, driven sea-wood stakes
Shall carry one last signature,
Inscribed in high, high bafflement; unfathomable event,
His words halt - shy head hanging, he defers:

"Unknown seaman" - a ghostly pencil
Wavers, the purple drips,
Here, rainy seasons have rinsed the dedication
Blue as dead men's lips;

Haggard hordes have been making the landing,
Whether as adversaries they fought,
Allies, neither; sand binds all together,
Enlisted on the other front.

El Alamein.

-- Kenneth Slessor, Beach Burial

A SCHOOLDAY

One Thursday a Vietminh flag was seen flying
Here in a South Vietnamese village.
Therefore a bomber flew here,
Destroying the school and a few other "structures".
The mission had killed about thirty children,
And three adults.

When survivors of here, unappeased,
Bore remains to Da Nang as a protest,
A government force halted them,
Took the children's bodies,
And arrested the fathers.

Which lessons had been in progress here
At the school's death? English,
Praying, adding, the band, a ballgame:
All have been ended in hell's harsh darkness,
Flaring, dying.

When, one Thursday, a Vietminh flag was seen flying.

-- Denis Knight, Schoolday in Man Quang (after an incident reported from Saigon in March 1965)

A general pressed a lever - He started World War Three... From any and every corner Bombs began to tear There was even missile gridlock No stop signs in the air In the time he'd need to blow his nose People fell, mushrooms rose "House!" cried a fat lady As a bingo hall was hit "Raus!" yelled a lagery German hag When fan hit shit The affluent Shivering, safe in shelters The deprived Dead, ashy, holding a (very last) Sun Home defence volunteers naff hat in one hand, head on other C.N.D. gangs scrawl "Hah! Told ya so" in fresh ash The general? Yes, he has got the sack - Ah, but that didn't bring Three billion seven hundred humans back, Did it?

-- Roger McGough, Icarus Allsorts