Well as it is the hundredth anniversary of Paschendaele here`s one, for every soldier who fell in
that terrible conflict, WW1
from "Death of a Hero" by Richard Aldington.
You have to do a bit of arithmetic, the book was written in 1929, eleven years after the end of WW1.Also that the Trojan war lasted 10 years.
Epitaph.
Eleven years after the fall of Troy,
We, the old men-some of us nearly forty-
Met and talked on the sunny ramparts, over our wine,while the lizards scuttled in the dusty grass
and the crickets chirred.
Some spoke of the heartbeat in the din of battle, others of the thirst-dry in the throat.
.
Others bared their wounds, the light gone from their eyes and the grey thick in their hair.
And I sat a little apart from the old warriors and garrulous talk,
I heard a boy of about twenty say petulantly to his girl, Oh come away, why do you stand there
open mouthed, listening to the talk of old men. Haven`t we heard enough of old wars and dull forgotten battles and people we never knew?
And he pulled her to him and kissed her, and later I heard her gay distant laughter as he heaped more scorn on us, being now out of hearing
The talk still clashed about me like the meeting of blade on blade--
And I thought of the graves by desolate Troy, and the beauty of many young men now dust.
And I too walked away in an agony of grief and pity.
Not very glorious but by 1929 many people were tired of hearing about he war and wished to move on.
There were many of course who could not.No grave to tend , sometimes no exact place or date of death and too often no body yet found.
How do people move on when there is no real "closure"?
The ten years of the battle and eleven years since its end give twenty one.
Twenty one from the "nearly forty " of the old men gives eighteen/ nineteen, just the age of our youngest men when conscripted.
I love this epitaph but it does sum up the period -1920s`- when some people wanted to move on and in this rather hedonistic period seemed to have forgotten about the war. Or perhaps that was their way of coping.
I always feel it should end --"In an agony of grief and ANGER"
I may have misquoted slightly, my WW1 books are still unpacked as yet from the move.
Thanks again for letting us know bout the site.Viktoria.