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Probably Will:

Tales of a Tennessean Lost in Florida
by Will Dixon

"God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear…"

Worthy of the Cavalier poets, envisioning perhaps a promise of passionate love, but at least the physical, if not also the spiritual bond existing between lovers---comforting and certainly not to be given up lightly---but the verse continues:

This poem, "I Have a Rendezvous with Death," was written by Alan Seeger, an American poet born in 1888 and killed in action on July 4, 1916 in a charge at Belloy-en-Santerre in France across no-man's land, against the Germans in World War I. The United States had not entered the war at this time; Seeger had been living in Paris in 1914 and had enlisted in the French Foreign Legion so he could join the fight. All of his poetry was published after his death--- as a sidelight, he was an uncle of the folksinger/songwriter, Pete Seeger. (info from Wikipedia). This poem is very similar to Yeats' "An Irish Airman Foresees his Death"----

Of course, Yeats did not fight in the war and in his poem, his airman professes neither love for England nor hatred of her enemies---that he certainly doesn't fight for his country (Ireland) in this war, instead that his self-foreseen death among the clouds he loved was better than what lay ahead otherwise

One could argue that Yeats's poem represented an observation as opposed to the commitment expressed in the verses of Seeger.

An interest in history naturally led me to historical poems, especially ones about battles, such as, of course, "Charge of the Light Brigade" (Alfred Lord Tennyson), "Tommy" and "Gunga Din" (Kipling), The Odyssey and The Iliad (Homer), Le Morte d'Arthur (Malory), and on and on. All of these poems were written either as attempts to memorialize or to tell the story of the battles, wars, heroes, etc. Not taking a thing away from any of these works, reading Seeger and his prophetic rendezvous with death makes the meeting even more heroic. Seeming to accept fate, he vows to follow through "On some scarred slope or battered hill,"--- but keeping the meeting in July instead of spring..

Similarly, "In Flanders Field"

written in 1915 by Lieut-Col John McCrae about the huge red poppy covered military cemetery in Flanders, Belgium after the death of a young friend and former student of his. McCrae was an artillery commander and then later, as he was also a doctor, a medical commander with the first Canadian contingent in France. He himself died of pneumonia after four years on the western front on January 28, 1918. His most telling lines were

Many times it has been pointed out that poppies grow in areas that have been disturbed, dug up for graves, or the scenes of battles---so the poppies represented not only the dead, but the war itself. I have seen fields full of red poppies with their black cross in fields where the battle of Bastogne was fought in World War II---I saw them many years after the battle. The poem has been debated for years---the first two verses seem to take an anti-war stance but the last verse urges that the fight be continued, lest the dead have died in vain. Supposedly McCrae had scribbled down the poem and thrown it away. Then it was said to have been literally pulled from the trash by a subordinate who sent it to the English magazine Punch, where it was initially published. Most critics hail it as the most famous poem about WWI, some say the most famous about war in general.

Perhaps the most well known American poet to be killed in WWI was Sgt. Joyce Kilmer, whose "Trees" was published in 1914 before he entered the military. He served with the 165th Infantry (69th New York) American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and was killed July 30, 1918---less than three months before the war ended. He was thirty one years old and already a well known poet and lecturer.

Of course, I could have just as easily chosen other wars where poets or other writers had been killed or served. One of my favorite books is a collection of short stories about the Civil War by Ambrose Bierce who served as a junior officer in the Union army and later went on to write among other things, The Devil's Dictionary. Perhaps my favorite book about the Civil War is The Red Badge of Courage, but it was written in the 1890's by Stephen Crane who was born in the 1870's. I do have a history of the 1st Georgia Infantry that has an account of my gggrandfather's death in August of 1862 in Virginia. Norman Mailer based his Naked and the Dead on his experiences in the Philippines in WWII and James Jones wrote The Thin Red Line after serving on Guadalcanal. There are many, many more books written by people serving in or caught up in wars including Korea, Vietnam, and now Desert Storm and Iraq and Afghanistan. The reason I singled out Kilmer, McCrae, and Seeger is that all three not only died in this war---two even seemed to predict their deaths. Also I do have some hope that maybe these three poets, at least their works that I cited, might actually still be taught in today's school systems. Unfortunately, probably not taught there is perhaps the best book in my opinion about WWI, written by a German soldier, Erich Maria Remark, who survived the war and wrote, All Quiet on the Western Front, under the name Erich Maria Remarque. In keeping with his times, Tennyson talks about the "gallant" charge of the 600 in the Crimean War…Maybe Remarque and Tennyson in their works do agree about how bravery is squandered in war, though Tennyson seems to linger on chivalry while Remarque unflinchingly paints gritty reality---disemboweled horses, men literally blown to bits and his young hero fatally shot as he stretches from his trench to try to touch a butterfly. Mostly I chose to speak about World War I for it was touted as "The War to End All Wars" and it certainly didn't. Veteran's Day was originally chosen to match the original Armistice Day, when WWI symbolically ended in 1918, "on the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month."

Just an observation by a veteran, honoring all of our other veterans, past and present, especially those still serving and their families.


© Will Dixon 2009

Will Dixon, a tenth generation Tennessean, who after many travels and travails has somehow found himself on the Space Coast of Florida.

Send Will a message directly or check out his past works in the archives.
Will has started a blog at http://willusuallywill.blogspot.com/

 

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