What do you think of this poem by Arthur Rimbaud, about War?

[Julie4]

He wrote this poem when he was only 15 years old.


" While the red spittle of shrapnel whistles all day across the infinite blue sky; whether scarlet or green, by the King who mocks them, The battalions crumble en masse in the fire;

While a terrible madness crushes
And makes of a hundred thousand men a smoking heap;

– Poor dead! In the summer, in the grass, in your joy, nature! Oh, you who made these men so holy...

– There is a God, who laughs at the damasked cloths Of altars, at the incense, at the great golden chalices; Who sleeps in the rocking of hosannas

And wakes up, when mothers, gathered
In anguish, and weeping under their old black bonnet, Give him a hefty coin wrapped in their handkerchief! "

[exitseven]

He was ahead of his time. The more things change the more they stay the same. I remember this one.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/zJOLH8WfCaY

[RavVid]

You might like these two of about the same era.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gmgwx77osw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TThjY_qlEfg

[RavVid]

Is this WW1 vintage? It affects me greatly. It was our ANZAC yesterday.

[Julie4]

It must have been very emotional.

No, he wrote that in 1870, I wonder how he could have written such a thing when he was only 15.

[RavVid]

The Dawn Service is always very emotional thinking of those who ran into machine gun fire.

1870 was the Franco Prussian war with lots of casualities from new tech. Breech loading rifles and improved cannon but no camouflage. A 15 yo boy would have been older then I imagine, as more responsibility was expected than is today but still far from conscription age.

I guess it is from what he saw.

[Julie4]

Yes, I can imagine the terrible emotions at those moments.

Rimbaud was exceptionally gifted, and his report card shows the results of his second year: excellence for the first semester, first prize in the first religious education course, first prize in Latin verses, first prize in the Concours académique, first prize in Latin versions, first prize in Greek versions, and so on. He won it all: eight first prizes that year.

He stopped writing at the age of 20. He sank into alcohol, drugs etc. And he died at 37.

[RavVid]

The Dawn Service is carefully crafted to take you through emotions - a sad sense of loss for the dead and but, as the sun rises, it is replaced with a somber gratitude & happiness is the way I'd describe. Everyone seems somberly happy afterwards and there is a great sense of community.

I would have to imagine Rimbaud's passion died and it's loss was difficult to deal with. I had a slight experience of something akin. Maybe entirely wrong but it is a frame in which to understand it.

[RyanEC]

Wow he was only 15?


I think there is a lot of truth to that.
Most wars were not worth fighting but some were.

[Julie4]

Yes only 15 years old, he stopped writing at the age of 20. He was a gifted writer. A pure genius.

[DrPepper12]

I love Coleridge and the lake poets. Byron is also... I don't know, divine!