Text 31

What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous abger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,

Nor ant voice of mourning save the choirs, –

The shrill, demeted choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles can be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers are tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

He refused to accept the romantic patriotism of many poets of his generation. Owen wrote that the war is fought by real men who bleed and die, and he describes the idea that Dulce et Decorum est Pro Patria Mori − it is sweet and honourable to die for one's country − as 'the old lie'.

The lost generation produced the important American poet Edward Estlin Cummings (1894—1962). His poetry is most unconventional at first glance. He is the most radically modernistic poets of America in the 20^th century.

"As far as i [ his preferred spelling ] am concerned, poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality", said Cummings.

In fact, the poet made every part of a poem express his individuality. Some of his titles are not real words; he rarely capitalizes the words that are usually capitalized (like his own name, for instance). Cummings wanted the reader to look attentively at the individual word, and even the letters in the word. That's why his poems look strange on the printed page. Cummings has taken enormous liberties with words and syntax alike: sometimes it's really hard to negotiate the grasshopper jumps of his letters, invented words and punctuation marks.

Underneath his experimental surface, however, the themes of Cummings's poetry are surprisingly traditional. Courage and love are always there. And the sonnet, of all the literary forms, is always there! But, rebel as he was, Cummings hated the large and powerful forces in modern life: politics, the Church, Big Business. His love poetry becomes pretty obscene at times; but to him, real love can only happen in complete freedom.

"I value freedom", said the poet, "and have never expected freedom to be anything less than indecent".

Whatever their poetry was about, the sonnet form emerged with surprising regularity proving to be capable of expressing a much wider range of emotions. Just have a look at his sonnet about war (Text 32)