“They saw their injured country's woe;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear, - but left the shield.”
―Philip Freneau
.
And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again?
Archilochus
"He wanted notmerely to expose Edwardian Society but to OVERTHROW it."
... We live for your demise. We thrive on righteous hate. It is by now too late To make a plan to stop us End the Founder's opus. Our Marx destroyed your God. He's in - not on - the sod Feeding nematodes In their dark abodes.
With mockery and shrill Sarcastic gibes we kill. We drool with sheer delight At the thought of endless night. Where everything that's witty, Charming, gracious, pretty Slumps to the nitty gritty, As we revel in the dung Corrupting all your young ...
~ FreeThinke - excerpted from A Leftist Caught in Doubt
Nevinson sounds like a precursor of the fake heroics of Geraldo Rivera and Hillary Clinton "reporting" as they dodged nonexistent bullets "from tbe front."
______ DULCE ET DECORUM EST _______ . Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! –– An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. –– Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin, If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs Bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-- My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.
~ Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War.
His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend and mentor Siegfried Sassoon, and stood in stark contrast both to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke.
Among his best-known works – most of which were published posthumously – are "Dulce et Decorum est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility" and "Strange Meeting". ...
Owen is regarded by many as the greatest poet of the First World War.
Artist Paul Nash and poet Wilfred Owen had much in common, didn't they?
Spencer's modest, brick Resurrection Chapel brought Mary Eizabeth Frye's homely-but-heartening verse to mind.
Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning's hush I am the swift uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I did not die.
~ Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905-2004
I never read that withiut getting goose bumps and moisture in my eyes..
Above FJ said, "I find [Wyndham's] s vorticism a pretty accurate representation of 20th century society and life. It wasn't his "vision". It was his "reality."
Yes, but I see that idea as supportive of my own long held theory that we can –– and often DO –– CREATE our OWN reality FROM whatever capacity we have to envision either a finer,nobler, more beautiful, more salubrious, more idyllic world or a ceushing, brutish dystopian nightmare.
I had doubts about the narrator early one, but grew to love his warmth of feeling and eloquent descriptions of each of his aubjects as the presentation moved away from the perceived vapidity of upper-class Edwardian society vis a vis the sordidness and sickening deprivation of lower class British life to the trauma of WWI and the early twentieth century as seen through British art.
Granted there were severe limitations in the lifestyle of the upper class in Britain. As those unfortunate enough to have been close to Henry VIII soon learned, then Jane Austen and later John Galsworthy and Henry James taught us, the constraints placed on those blest with wealth and highly regarded social position were often stifling to the point of being cruel and downright oppressive.
HOWEVER, one would think that instead of envy-inspired hatred and the desire to destroy, the elegant, decorous, pastel-tinted "fantasy life" so despised and reviled by Sickert and Wyndham Lewis would have held tremendous APPEAL for those trapped in the blood-soaked gutters and stinking slums inhabited by the lower classes and despised minorities like swarthy, thick-tongued foreigners and the Orthodox Jews.
Why wouldn't the patalial splendor, cleanliness, high fashion, delicate, delightfully varied victuals, and decorous manners enjoyed by the Upper Crust inspire EMULATION to those trapped in poverty?
But no! Sadly mist do no ASPIRE towards anythung better, instead they wish to TEAR DOWN.
... And I will see your hide Shredded, tanned and dried. And hung outside the gates Of each neighborhood that hates The needy and the poor, Who soon will storm your door And drag you from your bed And then lop off your head. While the masses you denied Will ever take great pride Your ignominious demise Was effected in the guise Of condign righteous wrath Giving you an acid bath.
With stolen food and goods We'll raze your neighborhoods And laugh to see you hurt Dying in the dirt. WE DO NOT CARE TO RISE: We live for your demise. We thrive on righteous hate ...
~ FreeThinke - excerpted from A Lefist Caught in Doubt
The sadly neglected poet Rudyard Kipling who mst are taught today represents an outmoded, backward looking, racist, anti-Progressive view of life was in reality a sensitive soul who understood the dyamics of his time and foresaw much of the "terror and slaughter" that was to come. Like Cassandra before him his prophecy, which we see laid out very clearly in his 1897 poem RECESSIONAL, popularly known as "Lest We Forget," were ignored with tragic consequences.
______ Recessional (1897) ______
God of our fathers, known of old, ___ Lord of our far-flung battle-line, Beneath whose awful Hand we hold ___ Dominion over palm and pine— Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies; ___ The Captains and the Kings depart: Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, ___ An humble and a contrite heart. Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away; ___ On dune and headland sinks the fire: Lo, all our pomp of yesterday ___ Is one with Nineveh and Tyre! Judge of the Nations, spare us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose ___ Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe, Such boastings as the Gentiles use, ___ Or lesser breeds without the Law— Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust ___ In reeking tube and iron shard, All valiant dust that builds on dust, ___ And guarding, calls not Thee to guard, For frantic boast and foolish word— Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!
It's a bit hard to emulate your "betters" once they've locked in all their "systemic" legal advantages. If a poor man must pay a 40% income tax on a pound earned, whilst his better need only pay 10%, it takes a bit longer to acculmulate the necessary capital to acquire a large estate.
What brought Melville to your mind, FJ? I have to admit, even though I know the story of Moby Dick, that I found his prose dense, turgid, and all but unreadable.
Since I started to lose my sight fifteen years ago, and have in fact been legally blind for the past four years, I honestly can't read anything larger than a news item and that only when it's magnified to 36pt type.
I can't even enjoy using my Kindle.
As I type these days I have to push my nose less than half an inch away from the screen. It's all very awkward and uncomfortable, and makes me suject to stiff necks and dizzy spells..
I suppose that's why I've become increasingly intolerant of idiocy and barbed rhetoric and short-tempered in general lately.
But then I never have suffered fools gladly, and I dislike self-appointed gadflies even more.
At the beginning of Part Two wit its lovely examples of Nash's wheatfields and landscapes this leapt immediately to my mind:
__________ JERUSALEM __________
And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold! Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight, Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand, Till we have built Jerusalem In England's green and pleasant land.
~ William Blake (1757-1827)
I understand Blake was inspired to write this beloved poem by a passage from Milton. It was set to music later in the nineteenth-century by Hubert Parry, whse splendid treatment turned it into Britain's unofficial national anthem. Even at my advanced age I can never think of thus splendid thing without breaking our into goose bumps all over my body. Cynics, naysyers and iconoclasts notwithstanding the pride, the magic, the glory, and the beauty that was England lives on in her poetry and the music of her finest composers. For this i shall always thank God.
What brought it to mind? Why the thought of EVERYONE emulating the British upper classes...
Whilst we might ALL admire and enjoy the "paradise of the bachelors" (Middle Temple life)... it doesn't come about with a Tartarus for the Maids (sweatshops for garment workers).
It would be unbearably tedious if everyone wanted all the same things all the time.
I'm actually much in favor of in-conformance to bland philistine norms.
Yet I I've much the same sort of 'fantasy life' so despised and ejected by Sickert and Wyndham, but without all the pomp and ceremony. My lady friends no longer wear corsets with whalebone stays that cause them got have frequent fainting spells, nor do we serve ten or fifteen courses of elaborately prepared food served by a staff with a fliveried ootman stationed behind each chair at dinner.
I find it delightful to be able to pick and choose from the great Smoergasbord of possibilities history affords us.
25 comments:
"He wanted notmerely to expose Edwardian Society but to OVERTHROW it."
... We live for your demise.
We thrive on righteous hate.
It is by now too late
To make a plan to stop us
End the Founder's opus.
Our Marx destroyed your God.
He's in - not on - the sod
Feeding nematodes
In their dark abodes.
With mockery and shrill
Sarcastic gibes we kill.
We drool with sheer delight
At the thought of endless night.
Where everything that's witty,
Charming, gracious, pretty
Slumps to the nitty gritty,
As we revel in the dung
Corrupting all your young ...
~ FreeThinke - excerpted from A Leftist Caught in Doubt
Yes, I found it rather ironic that they'd try and turn Wyndham Lewis into some type of Satanic ogre... the Marxists learned nothing from WWII.
They learn nothing from reality. They seem o be nourished primarily by their own warped, hateful, envy-inspired view of Life
I see a lot of CUBIST infkuence in Wyhdham' work –– Braque, Picasso, Duchamps but uglier and less intriguing.
Wndham's hideous vision was cintomoranwius with E.M. Forster's chilling dystopian novella The Machine Stops (1909)
I find his vorticism an pretty accurate representation of 20th century society and life. It wasn't his "vision". It was his "reality".
Lewis was part of the Ezra Pound circle. "Conservatives" surrounded by Marxists.
And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass
--Ezra Pound
Nevinson sounds like a precursor of the fake heroics of Geraldo Rivera and Hillary Clinton "reporting" as they dodged nonexistent bullets "from tbe front."
______ DULCE ET DECORUM EST _______
.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! –– An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. ––
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
~ Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War.
His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend and mentor Siegfried Sassoon, and stood in stark contrast both to the public perception of war at the time and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke.
Among his best-known works – most of which were published posthumously – are "Dulce et Decorum est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility" and "Strange Meeting". ...
Owen is regarded by many as the greatest poet of the First World War.
Artist Paul Nash and poet Wilfred Owen had much in common, didn't they?
Spencer's modest, brick Resurrection Chapel brought Mary Eizabeth Frye's homely-but-heartening verse to mind.
Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
~ Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905-2004
I never read that withiut getting goose bumps and moisture in my eyes..
Above FJ said, "I find [Wyndham's] s vorticism a pretty accurate representation of 20th century society and life. It wasn't his "vision". It was his "reality."
Yes, but I see that idea as supportive of my own long held theory that we can –– and often DO –– CREATE our OWN reality FROM whatever capacity we have to envision either a finer,nobler, more beautiful, more salubrious, more idyllic world or a ceushing, brutish dystopian nightmare.
I had doubts about the narrator early one, but grew to love his warmth of feeling and eloquent descriptions of each of his aubjects as the presentation moved away from the perceived vapidity of upper-class Edwardian society vis a vis the sordidness and sickening deprivation of lower class British life to the trauma of WWI and the early twentieth century as seen through British art.
Good stuff!
Interesting subjects... resurrection... old souls (stones) crossing fields...
...fortunately, not all horses and rich estates.
Granted there were severe limitations in the lifestyle of the upper class in Britain. As those unfortunate enough to have been close to Henry VIII soon learned, then Jane Austen and later John Galsworthy and Henry James taught us, the constraints placed on those blest with wealth and highly regarded social position were often stifling to the point of being cruel and downright oppressive.
HOWEVER, one would think that instead of envy-inspired hatred and the desire to destroy, the elegant, decorous, pastel-tinted "fantasy life" so despised and reviled by Sickert and Wyndham Lewis would have held tremendous APPEAL for those trapped in the blood-soaked gutters and stinking slums inhabited by the lower classes and despised minorities like swarthy, thick-tongued foreigners and the Orthodox Jews.
Why wouldn't the patalial splendor, cleanliness, high fashion, delicate, delightfully varied victuals, and decorous manners enjoyed by the Upper Crust inspire EMULATION to those trapped in poverty?
But no! Sadly mist do no ASPIRE towards anythung better, instead they wish to TEAR DOWN.
... And I will see your hide
Shredded, tanned and dried.
And hung outside the gates
Of each neighborhood that hates
The needy and the poor,
Who soon will storm your door
And drag you from your bed
And then lop off your head.
While the masses you denied
Will ever take great pride
Your ignominious demise
Was effected in the guise
Of condign righteous wrath
Giving you an acid bath.
With stolen food and goods
We'll raze your neighborhoods
And laugh to see you hurt
Dying in the dirt.
WE DO NOT CARE TO RISE:
We live for your demise.
We thrive on righteous hate ...
~ FreeThinke - excerpted from A Lefist Caught in Doubt
The sadly neglected poet Rudyard Kipling who mst are taught today represents an outmoded, backward looking, racist, anti-Progressive view of life was in reality a sensitive soul who understood the dyamics of his time and foresaw much of the "terror and slaughter" that was to come. Like Cassandra before him his prophecy, which we see laid out very clearly in his 1897 poem RECESSIONAL, popularly known as "Lest We Forget," were ignored with tragic consequences.
______ Recessional (1897) ______
God of our fathers, known of old,
___ Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
___ Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
The tumult and the shouting dies;
___ The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
___ An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Far-called, our navies melt away;
___ On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
___ Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
___ Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
___ Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
For heathen heart that puts her trust
___ In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
___ And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!
~ Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)
You must not be a very big Melville fan, FT. Try "The Paradise of the Bachelors & The Tartarus of the Maids".
It's a bit hard to emulate your "betters" once they've locked in all their "systemic" legal advantages. If a poor man must pay a 40% income tax on a pound earned, whilst his better need only pay 10%, it takes a bit longer to acculmulate the necessary capital to acquire a large estate.
A level playing field is all they want.
Today's Leftists are labeling this economic disparity "systemic violence"... and I'm inclined to agree with them.
millenials are the new Marxists FJ!!! have a beautiful holiday season my friend! xoxox:)
Thanks, Angel! You, too!
What brought Melville to your mind, FJ? I have to admit, even though I know the story of Moby Dick, that I found his prose dense, turgid, and all but unreadable.
Since I started to lose my sight fifteen years ago, and have in fact been legally blind for the past four years, I honestly can't read anything larger than a news item and that only when it's magnified to 36pt type.
I can't even enjoy using my Kindle.
As I type these days I have to push my nose less than half an inch away from the screen. It's all very awkward and uncomfortable, and makes me suject to stiff necks and dizzy spells..
I suppose that's why I've become increasingly intolerant of idiocy and barbed rhetoric and short-tempered in general lately.
But then I never have suffered fools gladly, and I dislike self-appointed gadflies even more.
At the beginning of Part Two wit its lovely examples of Nash's wheatfields and landscapes this leapt immediately to my mind:
__________ JERUSALEM __________
And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!
I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.
~ William Blake (1757-1827)
I understand Blake was inspired to write this beloved poem by a passage from Milton. It was set to music later in the nineteenth-century by Hubert Parry, whse splendid treatment turned it into Britain's unofficial national anthem. Even at my advanced age I can never think of thus splendid thing without breaking our into goose bumps all over my body. Cynics, naysyers and iconoclasts notwithstanding the pride, the magic, the glory, and the beauty that was England lives on in her poetry and the music of her finest composers. For this i shall always thank God.
What brought it to mind? Why the thought of EVERYONE emulating the British upper classes...
Whilst we might ALL admire and enjoy the "paradise of the bachelors" (Middle Temple life)... it doesn't come about with a Tartarus for the Maids (sweatshops for garment workers).
I've read a lot of Melville's short stories.
Different strokes for different folks ... ;-)
It would be unbearably tedious if everyone wanted all the same things all the time.
I'm actually much in favor of in-conformance to bland philistine norms.
Yet I I've much the same sort of 'fantasy life' so despised and ejected by Sickert and Wyndham, but without all the pomp and ceremony. My lady friends no longer wear corsets with whalebone stays that cause them got have frequent fainting spells, nor do we serve ten or fifteen courses of elaborately prepared food served by a staff with a fliveried ootman stationed behind each chair at dinner.
I find it delightful to be able to pick and choose from the great Smoergasbord of possibilities history affords us.
Nothing wrong with that!
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