Monday, November 12, 2012

Flanders Fields ~
What Have We Learned?

Thanks to my father - in - law Ron McCartney
for this postcard from Ypres . . .

by Canadian Poet, John McCrae, 1872-1918

. . . and to my brother Bruce for telling me about this touching video of Linus (from the Peanuts gang)
reciting the poem (slightly longer version):

What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown?

1 comment:

  1. Thanks to Brigit Farley for sharing this poem:

    Magpies in Picardy
    by T. P. Cameron Wilson

    "TIPCUCA"
    IN The Westminster Gazette

    THE. magpies in Picardy
    Are more than I can tell.
    They flicker down the dusty roads
    And cast a magic spell
    On the men who march through Picardy,
    Through Picardy to hell.

    (The blackbird flies with panic,
    The swallow goes like light,
    The finches move like ladies,
    The owl floats by at night;
    But the great and flashing magpie
    He flies as artists might.)

    A magpie in Picardy
    Told me secret things--
    Of the music in white feathers,
    And the sunlight that sings
    And dances in deep shadows--
    He told me with his wings.

    (The hawk is cruel and rigid,
    He watches from a height;
    The rook is slow and somber,
    The robin loves to fight;
    But the great and flashing magpie
    He flies as lovers might.)

    He told me that in Picardy,
    An age ago or more,
    While all his fathers still were eggs,
    These dusty highways bore
    Brown, singing soldiers marching out
    Through Picardy to war.

    He said that still through chaos
    Works on the ancient plan,
    And that two things have altered not
    Since first the world began-
    The beauty of the wild green earth
    And the bravery of man.

    (For the sparrow flies unthinking
    And quarrels in his flight.
    The heron trails his legs behind,
    The lark goes out of sight;
    But the great and flashing magpie
    He flies as poets might.)

    http://beck.library.emory.edu/greatwar/poetry/eaton/Eaton111/

    http://war-poets.blogspot.com/2010/08/t-p-cameron-wilson-magpies-in-picardy.html

    ReplyDelete