"'Those who met death met it gladly, falling with their faces to the enemy...'"
-SM Stirling, The Desert And The Blade (New York, 2016), Chapter Thirty-Two, p. 808.
And in "For the Fallen":
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
-copied from here.
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Not bad, as a poem, these verses by Binyon. But, by and large, I prefer Kipling's "military" poems because he seems to have been more realistic about the COSTS of war.
Sean
"If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied."
— "Common Form," from "Epitaphs of the War"
David,
There is another poem somewhere:
"'Slay the lamb of pride instead.'
"But the old man would not and slew his son
"And half of the seed of Europe one by one."
http://www.poemtree.com/poems/ParableOfTheOldMan.htm
Kaor, DAVID!
Ha! I'm sure there's too much truth in that verse you quoted. Altho, most times, most place, I would put more blame on human quarrelsomeness, ambition, greed, miscalculation, blundering, etc.
Sean
Thank you for mentioning Kipling's "Epitaphs of War".
It's very appropriate that I saw them today, not quite six years later.
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