Melancholetta

Inspection by Wilfred Owen

'You! What d'you mean by this?' I rapped.
'You dare come on parade like this?'
'Please, sir, it's-' ''Old yer mouth,' the sergeant snapped.
'I takes 'is name, sir?'-'Please, and then dismiss.'

Some days 'confined to camp' he got,
For being 'dirty on parade'.
He told me, afterwards, the damned spot
Was blood, his own. 'Well, blood is dirt,' I said.

'Blood's dirt,' he laughed, looking away,
Far off to where his wound had bled
And almost merged for ever into clay.
'The world is washing out its stains,' he said.
'It doesn't like our cheeks so red:
Young blood's its great objection.
But when we're duly white-washed, being dead,
The race will bear Field-Marshal God's inspection.'

- Wilfred Owen

I needn't say much about Owen or this poem - but a couple of years ago I happened to read something on the web which floored me....

Dear Sir Rabindranath:

I have been trying to find courage to write to you ever since I heard that you were in London - but the desire to tell you something is finding its way into this letter today. The letter may never reach you, for I do not know how to address it, tho' I feel sure your name upon the envelope will be sufficient. It is nearly two years ago, that my dear eldest son went out to the War for the last time and the day he said Goodbye to me - we were looking together across the sun-glorified sea - looking towards France with breaking hearts - when he, my poet son, said these wonderful words of yours -

'jabar diney ei kawthati boley jeno jai -
ja dekhechi, ja peyechi tulona tar nai' -

'when I leave, let these be my parting words:
what my eyes have seen, what my life received, are unsurpassable.'

And when his pocket book came back to me - I found these words written in his dear writing - with your name beneath. Would I be asking too much of you, to tell me what book I should find the whole poem in?

This was the letter written by Owen's mother to Tagore after the death of her son. The book was of course 'Gitanjali'. Tagore had been awarded the Nobel Prize for this - a year back, but was largely unknown to the world... I had read a little of Gitanjali before ... but was never too impressed with it. I couldn't reconcile with the simplicity of the verses, and I thought it was just another example of writing from the orient overtly obsessed with a simplistic sense of beauty and resigned melancholy...

War would have been the last thing I would have associated with Tagore. But, the above two quoted lines seen through Owen's eyes gave me whole new dimension to his verses. How neatly they fit into the extreme negatives of war - just as they fit with things of beauty? The fact that these could have inspired one of the most celebrated war poets, was a revelation.

Will try and post a few more Owens that I enjoyed... (I am still very poor on Tagore... is there anaybody here who could post more on him? Maybe Chitra...??)

posted by Woodworm @ 1:17 AM