This weekend, we observe Memorial Day to honor those who sacrificed their lives in defense of our country. This is fitting and proper. We name buildings and structures “Memorial” in honor of the dead.
During my childhood in Winnsboro, Texas, I attended Memorial Junior High School. At the time, I was unaware of the significance behind the school’s name. My knowledge of the school’s history was limited, except that I knew the cafeteria was constructed in 1912, the same year as the Titanic disaster. It was not until adulthood that I learned the school was named to honor the young men from Winnsboro who lost their lives in “The Great War,” or World War I.
Recently, I have been reading Muse of Fire: World War I as Seen Through the Lives of the Soldier Poets, a compelling book about poetry written by soldiers during the war. The conflict has always fascinated me, in part because both of my grandfathers lived through that era and were nearly old enough to be drafted. The horror of the war is striking, especially considering it was intended to be the war to end all wars. The loss of so many promising young men, who departed with hope for the future but never returned, remains poignantly tragic.
The death of the young is always sad, particularly when it results from war. Ironically, the memory of those who perished in the First World War has faded over time, overshadowed by the many subsequent conflicts. Nevertheless, some of the most significant poetry was composed during that era to honor the fallen.
I vaguely recalled the poem entitled “I have a Rendezvous with Death”:
…But I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
I have a Rendezvous with Death.
I had not remembered that Alan Seeger was the author. Seeger, a Harvard graduate and writer, joined the French Foreign Legion in 1914 to participate in the Great War. He composed his prescient poem in 1915. Tragically, Seeger was killed on July 4, 1916.
Another poem that connects with me is “To An Athlete Dying Young.” Although written by A. E. Housman in 1896, it gained prominence during World War I as Europe mourned the loss of an entire generation of youth:
To An Athlete Dying Young
THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.
One of the most haunting poems from that era is anonymous and is inscribed on the modest headstone of Hobey Baker, one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century. Baker, a Princeton graduate, remains the only athlete inducted into both the College Football Hall of Fame and the Hockey Hall of Fame. Baker was a true superstar. His hockey records endured for decades, and today, college hockey’s equivalent of the Heisman Trophy is named the Hobey Baker Award.
Baker volunteered for service in World War I and was among the first to pilot an airplane in combat. Tragically, he died in a crash in Toul, France, leaving behind many grieving family members, friends, and admirers. Although the author remains unknown, the following poem is inscribed on Hobey Baker’s tombstone:
YOU SEEMED WINGED, EVEN AS A LAD,
WITH THAT SWIFT LOOK OF THOSE WHO KNOW THE SKY,
IT WAS NO BLUNDERING FATE THAT STOOPED AND BADE
YOU BREAK YOUR WINGS, AND FALL TO EARTH AND DIE,
I THINK SOME DAY YOU MAY HAVE FLOWN TOO HIGH,
SO THAT IMMORTALS SAW YOU AND WERE GLAD,
WATCHING THE BEAUTY OF YOUR SPIRITS FLAME,
UNTIL THEY LOVED AND CALLED YOU, AND YOU CAME.
The poem is extraordinary. Such works demonstrate the enduring power of poetry to help humanity remember those lost in the Great War. While this conflict is only one among many, it is important to remember this weekend that countless men and women have sacrificed their lives for our freedom.
Mark
Dr. Mark Edge
The WorkEdge Company
Telephone: 903-245-7851
Email: workedgetexas@gmail.com
Website: www.workedgetexas.com
Author of Holy Chaos How To Walk with God in a Frenzied World