I taste a liquor never brewed

by emily dickinson

I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When landlords turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove’s door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!

It seems so few learn to drink from nature, and yet it is the most precious liquor…

#712

by emily dickinson

Because I could not stop for death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, be passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then ’tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.

Death After Armistice

The BBC brings to light a study of the last soldiers to die in World War I:

…hundreds of these soldiers would lose their lives thrown into action by generals who knew that the Armistice had already been signed.

The recklessness of General Wright, of the 89th American Division, is a case in point.

Seeing his troops were exhausted and dirty, and hearing there were bathing facilities available in the nearby town of Stenay, he decided to take the town so his men could refresh themselves.

“That lunatic decision cost something like 300 casualties, many of them battle deaths, for an inconceivable reason,” says Mr Persico.

This is a completely different picture than the one told by the General himself in his diary, as explained by a retired soldier in Military Review:

Major General William M. Wright was a tireless commander who cared for the welfare of his troops, enforced discipline, and had an eye for detail. His diary refutes the myth that World War I generals were out of touch with the front line.

Apparently Wright took over and drove the division into combat for the first time, even though the troops had been “in theater for several months”:

Wright’s diary begins when he received command of the 89th and continues through the Meuse-Argonne offensive–one of the largest and bloodiest battles in American history. Wright describes how the 89th held the line through the St. Mihiel offensive then suddenly changed direction and advanced toward the Meuse-Argonne.

The timing of the Armistice definitely changes the picture, as does the revelation that a General would sacrifice soldiers just for control of the bathing facilities.

Speaking of the accuracy of records and history, here is another interesting tidbit from the BBC:

Augustin Trebuchon’s grave – along with all those French soldiers killed on 11 November 1918 – is marked 10/11/18. It is said that after the war France was so ashamed that men would die on the final day that they had all the graves backdated.

I guess it still has the wrong date, even after someone figured out what really happened. An opinion piece in the Washington Post for memorial day says Americans should pay more attention to the end of WWI and the details of US soldiers there, even if the story is not a good one:

The war’s last and greatest battle involving U.S. soldiers, fought in the Meuse-Argonne region of eastern France during the autumn of 1918, sucked in more than 1 million U.S. troops and hundreds of airplanes and tanks. Artillery batteries commanded by men such as the young Harry S. Truman fired more than 4 million shells — more than the Union Army fired during the entire Civil War. More than 26,000 doughboys were killed and almost 100,000 wounded, making the clash probably the bloodiest single battle in U.S. history. But as far as the American public was concerned, it might as well never have taken place. “Veterans said to me in their speeches and in private that the American people did not know anything about the Meuse-Argonne battle,” Brig. Gen. Dennis Nolan wrote years later. “I have never understood why.”

Hopefully lessons will be discussed and heard again as people discuss the BBC’s view on death after armistice. Will those people be American? Hard to say how many in the US pay attention to the BBC.

Although I think the Washington Post opinion piece has some excellent points, I find it strange that the author bemoans the lack of an American memorial and yet completely omits mention of the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City.

The Liberty Memorial is not only an official WWI museum in America, but it also had a groundbreaking ceremony in 1921 with the presence of the military leaders from Belgium, Great Britain, Italy, France and the US! I suppose the fact that Kansas City was once considered on par with New York and Los Angeles for nightlife and international fame is as lost to Americans as the significance of the Liberty Memorial to WWI.

London Snow

by Robert Bridges

When men were all asleep the snow came flying,
In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:
Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
All night it fell, and when full inches seven
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
The eye marvelled — marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.
Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,
They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze
Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;
Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;
Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder,
‘O look at the trees!’ they cried, ‘O look at the trees!’
With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,
Following along the white deserted way,
A country company long dispersed asunder:
When now already the sun, in pale display
Standing by Paul’s high dome, spread forth below
His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.
For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;
And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,
Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:
But even for them awhile no cares encumber
Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,
The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber
At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.