Poem Of The Week
Aug. 23rd, 2014 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Thomas Hardy was a poet as well as being a novelist.
The Pity of It
BY THOMAS HARDY
April 1915
I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar
From rail-track and from highway, and I heard
In field and farmstead many an ancient word
Of local lineage like 'Thu bist,' 'Er war,'
'Ich woll', 'Er sholl', and by-talk similar,
Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird
At England's very loins, thereunto spurred
By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are.
Then seemed a Heart crying: 'Whosoever they be
At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame
Between kin folk kin tongued even as are we,
'Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame;
May their familiars grow to shun their name,
And their brood perish everlastingly.'
Source: Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems (Palgrave, 2001)
The Pity of It
BY THOMAS HARDY
April 1915
I walked in loamy Wessex lanes, afar
From rail-track and from highway, and I heard
In field and farmstead many an ancient word
Of local lineage like 'Thu bist,' 'Er war,'
'Ich woll', 'Er sholl', and by-talk similar,
Nigh as they speak who in this month's moon gird
At England's very loins, thereunto spurred
By gangs whose glory threats and slaughters are.
Then seemed a Heart crying: 'Whosoever they be
At root and bottom of this, who flung this flame
Between kin folk kin tongued even as are we,
'Sinister, ugly, lurid, be their fame;
May their familiars grow to shun their name,
And their brood perish everlastingly.'
Source: Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems (Palgrave, 2001)
no subject
Date: 2014-08-23 05:30 pm (UTC)thu bist = "thou beest": du bist
er war = "he were": er war
ich woll = "I will": ich will
er sholl = "he shall": er soll
And from this, he's drawing the point that the English and the Germans are of common descent and common linguistic heritage and it's a damned shame for them to be killing each other.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-24 01:52 pm (UTC)