>be an ignorant britfag
>have little idea of world history past a few important events because I was a retard in school who didn't apply himself
>start using my internet connection to educate myself instead of vidya and fapping
>find this poem
Goddamn. This shit nearly moved me to tears. How beautiful. Are there any other examples of great world literature that has meaning toward a national identity/a creed/a historical emotional reflection?
Don't worry this isn't a thinly veiled /pol/ thread.
Here's a reading of part of it I like, from a video game no less, but the way the voice actor approached it is great in my opinion.
https://youtu.be/HEza0A15mls
>>9099340
If I should die, think only this of me;
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Emma (((Lazarus)))
>>9099413
Why is World War One poetry so GOAT?
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
>>9099432
It's a good poem, but mein Gott the ideology...
>a whole lot of people have already died for this thing, men, so I don't want to hear any complaints about your likely getting killed
>>9099340)))you(((
>Don't worry this isn't a thinly veiled /pol/ thread.
>>9099453
It's historically interesting at least. Flanders Fields was early-war and you can track the steadily mounting horror as society becomes aware of the nightmare it's unleashed.
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our 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,
Obscene as cancer, 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.
And I'm not going to post the Wasteland, but you've read it almost certainly.
From "death in battle is the highest honor" to "fuck my country, war is the worst" to "the project of the last two centuries was a complete and utter failure and we're all fucked" in one generation.
>>9099481
So being pro immigration is pol now?
>>9099507
Hot damn.
Is there much contemporary war poetry worth researching? It seems the modern day equivalent is a video posted on reddit of some guy greeting his dog after coming back from service.