Mr. Level's Senior English Website
Translation of The Famous Greek War Song
Lord Byron (1837)
Sons of the Greeks, arise!
The glorious hour's gone forth,
And, worthy of such ties,
Display who gave us birth.
Chorus
Sons of Greeks! let us go
In arms against the foe,
Till their hated blood shall flow
In a river past our feet.
Then manfully despising
The Turkish tyrant's yoke,
Let your country see you rising,
And all her chains are broke.
Brave shades of chiefs and sages,
Behold the coming strife!
Hellenes of past ages,
Oh, start again to life!
At the sound of my trumpet, breaking
Your sleep, oh, loin with me!
And the seven-hill'd city seeking,
Fight, conquer, till we're free.
(Chorus)
Sparta, Sparta, why in slumbers
Lethargic doth thou lie?
Awake, and join thy numbers
With Athens, old ally!
Leonidas recalling,
That chief of ancient song,
Who saved ye once from falling,
The terrible! the strong!
Who made that bold diversion
In old Thermopylæ
And warring with the Persian
To keep his country free;
With his three hundred waging
The battle, long he stood,
And like a lion raging,
Expired in seas of blood.
(Chorus)
The Hurt Locker
Brian Turner (2005)
Nothing but hurt left here.
Nothing but bullets and pain
and the bled-out slumping
and all the fucks and goddamns
and Jesus Christs of the wounded.
Nothing left here but the hurt.
Believe it when you see it.
Believe it when a twelve-year-old
rolls a grenade into the room.
Or when a sniper punches a hole
deep into someone’s skull.
Believe it when four men
step from a taxicab in Mosul
to shower the street in brass
and fire. Open the hurt locker
and see what there is of knives
and teeth. Open the hurt locker and learn
how rough men come hunting for souls.
Nefarious War
Li-Po ( 750 A.D.)
Last year we fought by the head-stream of the Sang-kan,
This year we are fighting on the Tsung-ho road.
We have washed our armor in the waves of the Chiao-chi lake,
We have pastured our horses on Tien-shan's snowy slopes.
The long, long war goes on ten thousand miles from home,
Our three armies are worn and grown old.
The barbarian does man-slaughter for plowing;
On this yellow sand-plains nothing has been seen but
blanched skulls and bones.
Where the Chin emperor built the walls against the Tartars,
There the defenders of Han are burning beacon fires.
The beacon fires burn and never go out,
There is no end to war!—
In the battlefield men grapple each other and die;
The horses of the vanquished utter lamentable cries to heaven,
While ravens and kites peck at human entrails,
Carry them up in their flight, and hang them on the branches of dead trees.
So, men are scattered and smeared over the desert grass,
And the generals have accomplished nothing.
Oh, nefarious war! I see why arms
Were so seldom used by the benign sovereigns.
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Lord Tennyson (1854)
I
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
II
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
III
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
Rode the six hundred.
IV
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered.
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.
V
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
VI
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!
DULCE ET DECORUM EST1
Wilfred Owen (1915)
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares2 we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest3 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 hoots4
Of tired, outstripped5 Five-Nines6 that dropped behind.
Gas!7 Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets8 just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime9 . . .
Dim, through the misty panes10 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,11 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,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud12
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest13
To children ardent14 for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
1 DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right." The full saying ends the poem: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country. In other words, it is a wonderful and great honor to fight and die for your country
2 rockets which were sent up to burn with a brilliant glare to light up men and other targets in the area between the front lines (See illustration, page 118 of Out in the Dark.)
3 a camp away from the front line where exhausted soldiers might rest for a few days, or longer
4 the noise made by the shells rushing through the air
5 outpaced, the soldiers have struggled beyond the reach of these shells which are now falling behind them as they struggle away from the scene of battle
6 Five-Nines - 5.9 caliber explosive shells
7 poison gas. From the symptoms it would appear to be chlorine or phosgene gas. The filling of the lungs with fluid had the same effects as when a person drowned
8 the early name for gas masks
9 a white chalky substance which can burn live tissue
10 the glass in the eyepieces of the gas masks
11 Owen probably meant flickering out like a candle or gurgling like water draining down a gutter, referring to the sounds in the throat of the choking man, or it might be a sound partly like stuttering and partly like gurgling
12 normally the regurgitated grass that cows chew; here a similar looking material was issuing from the soldier's mouth
13 high zest - idealistic enthusiasm, keenly believing in the rightness of the idea
14 keen; eager; passionate
The Man He Killed
Thomas Hardy (1902)
"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
"I shot him dead because —
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
"He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand like — just as I —
Was out of work — had sold his traps —
No other reason why.
"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."
Battle Hymn of the Republic
Julia Ward Howe (1861)
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword,
His truth is marching on.
CHORUS:
Glory, glory, hallelujah! Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah! His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watchfires of a hundred circling camps;
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps,
His day is marching on.
CHORUS
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His Judgement Seat.
Oh! Be swift, my soul, to answer Him, be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
CHORUS
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me;
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
CHORUS
Norman Morrison
Adrian Mitchell
On November 2nd 1965
in the multi-colored multi-minded
United beautiful States of terrible America
Norman Morrison set himself on fire
outside the Pentagon.
He was thirty-one, he was a Quaker,
and his wife (seen weeping in the newsreels)
and his three children
survive him as best they can.
He did it in Washington where everyone could see
because
people were being set on fire
in the dark corners of Vietnam where nobody could see
Their names, ages, beliefs and loves
are not recorded.
This is what Norman Morrison did.
He poured petrol over himself.
He burned. He suffered.
He died.
That is what he did
in the white heart of Washington
where everyone could see.
He simply burned away his clothes,
his passport, his pink-tinted skin,
put on a new skin of flame
and became
Vietnamese.
Lance Corporal Henry Hart, U.S.M.C.
Bryan Alec Floyd (1976)
Perhaps the guilt of war can be explained by all people,
But perhaps the meaning of the guilt only by their poets.
Had he made it through the war
he wanted to find words
and the good way with words
that he might write
in lovely, lasting words
what war had done to them.
Corporal Curt Meadows, U.S.M.C.
Bryan Alec Floyd (1976)
In the warp of military time,
his father got his son’s last letter
after he had received
official word of his son’s death.
His son’s letter read:
“And there will be old memories
made alive and young
of the dying and the dead
the living have no right to forget.”
Private Ian Godwin, U.S.M.C.
Bryan Alec Floyd (1976)
He stepped on a land mine,
falling up instead of down.
Afterward he lay still, listening
to his feet get up without him
and slowly walk away.
For this he was given a medal,
which he swallowed.
He was given crutches,
which he burned.
Flown Med-Evac to San Diego,
he was ordered to rehabilitate.
But he started to salute bedpans
and give orders to hypos,
and tell catheters to “Fire!”
He stood on his stumps,
yelling that he was going
to chase daisies up the hills
because winter had greened into spring,
that God had become rain and it was raining,
the soft mud of Vietnam cool between his toes.
Corporal Victor Vanderbilt, U.S.M.C.
Bryan Alec Floyd (1976)
After the Marines liberated Hue
they dug up the bodies
the Viet Cong left behind,
and three thousand corpses who, when alive,
refused or were unable to rise
to even higher and higher levels
of political consciousness,
and so were beaten and hacked and shot
to death after death after death,
liberated by their own.
The Marines thought
they had seen everything,
but nothing had ever been like this.
He went to a couple
who were on their knees, the tiny remains
of their year-old child before them.
Their baby had not lived long enough
to hate the world
or to blame life its living death called war.
Its mother was silent
beyond all silence;
its father dead beyond all death.
Yet she spoke, sobbing.
Yet he breathed, wailing.
Their child had left them
listening to the song of shrapnel
when a bullet pierced its ears and brain.
It was so young
it had looked at everything,
understanding nothing.
Except its mother.
Except its father.
They were alive
and they were dead.
Sergeant Brandon Just, U.S.M.C.
Bryan Alec Floyd (1976)
He was alive with death:
Her name was Sung
and she was six year sold.
By slightest mistake of degrees
on an artillery azimuth,
he had called for rockets and napalm.
Their wild wizardry of firepower
expired her mistake of a village,
killing everyone except her,
and napalm made her look
like she was dead among the dead,
she alone alive among their upturned corpses
burning toward the sky.
He and the platoon
got to them too late,
removing only her
to a hospital inside his base, Da Nang.
In the months that followed,
when he could make it back from the boonies,
he always went to visit Sung.
Finally he was ordered to a desk job at the base.
He visited her every day,
though he accused himself of being alive
and would stand in a slump,
breathing his despair,
before entering the children’s ward.
But he would enter.
Sung, knowing it was him,
would turn toward the sound of his feet,
her own, seared beyond being feet,
crisply trying to stand on shadows,
cool but unseen.
And as he would come in,
Sung would hobble up to him
in her therapeutic cart,
smiling even when she did not smile, lipless,
her chin melted to her chest
that would never become breasts.
He would stand
and wait for her to touch upon his hand
with her burn-splayed fingers
that came to lay a fire upon his flesh.
Sung was alive
and would live on despite life,
but even now her skull
seemed to be working its way through
the thin, fragile solids of wasted, waxen skin.
Her head was as bald as a bomb
whose paint had peeled.
She had no nose
and her ears were gone.
Her eyes had been removed,
and because they were not there,
they were
invisibly looking him through.
Sung was child-happy
that he came and cared,
and when he would start to leave,
she would agonize her words
out of the hollow that was her mouth.
Her tongue, bitten in two while she had burned,
strafing his ears,
saying, without mercy,
I love you.
Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley
By C Company Featuring Terry Nelson (1998)
Once upon a time there was a
Little boy who wanted to grow up
And be a soldier and serve his country
In whatever way he could
He would parade around the house
With a sauce pan on
His head for a helmet
A wooden sword in one hand
And the American flag in the other
As he grew up
He put away the things of a child
But he never let go of the flag
My name is William Calley
I'm a soldier of this land
I've tried to do my duty
And to gain the upper hand
But they've made me out a villain
They have stamped me with a brand
As we go marching on
I'm just another soldier
From the shores of U. S. A.
Forgotten on a battle field
Ten thousand miles away
While life goes on as usual
From New York to Santa Fe
As we go marching on
I've seen my buddies ambushed
On the left and on the right
And their youthful bodies riddled
By the bullets of the night
Where all the rules are broken
And the only law is might
As we go marching on
While we're fighting in the jungles
They were marching in the street
While we're dying in the rice fields
They were helping our defeat
While we're facing V. C. bullets
They were sounding a retreat
As we go marching on
With our sweat, we took the bunkers
With our tears, we took the plain
With our blood, we took the mountains
And they gave it back again
Still all of us are soldiers
We're too busy to complain
As we go marching on
When I reach my final campground
In that land beyond the sun
And the great commander asks me
Did you fight or did you run
I'll stand both straight and tall
Stripped of medals, rank and gun
And this is what I'll say
Sir, I followed all my orders
And I did the best I could
It's hard to judge the enemy
And hard to tell the good
Yet there's not a man among us
Would not have understood
We took the jungle village
Exactly like they said
We responded to their rifle fire
With everything we had
And when the smoke had cleared away
A hundred souls lay dead
Sir, the soldier that's alive
Is the only one can fight
There's no other way to wage a war
When the only one in sight
That you're sure is not a V. C.
Is your buddy on your right
When all the wars are over
And the battle's finally won
Count me only as a soldier
Who never left his gun
With the right to serve my country
As the only prize I've won
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Glory, glory, hallelujah
Born in the USA
Bruce Springsteen (1984)
Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up, now
Chorus:
Born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
I was born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A., now
Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man
(Chorus)
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says, "Son if it was up to me."
Went down to see my V.A. man
He said, "Son, don't you understand, now."
I had a brother at Khe Sahn fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a woman he loved in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms now
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years burning down the road
Nowhere to run ain't got nowhere to go
(Chorus)
Corporal Charles Chungtu, U.S.M.C.
Bryan Alec Floyd (1976)
This is what the war ended up being about:
we would find a V.C. village,
and if we could not capture it or clear it of Cong,
we called for jets.
The jets would come in, low and terrible,
sweeping down, and screaming,
in their first pass over the village.
Then they would return, dropping their first bombs
that flattened the huts to rubble and debris.
And then the jets would sweep back again
and drop more bombs
that blew the rubble and debris
to dust and ashes.
And then the jets would come back once again,
in a last pass, this time to drop napalm
that burned the dust and ashes to just nothing.
Then the village
that was not a village anymore
was our village.
................
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