Skimming lightly, wheeling still, The swallows fly low Over the fields in [clouded]1 days, The forest-field of Shiloh -- Over the field where April rain Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain Through the pause of night That followed the Sunday fight Around the church of Shiloh -- The church, so lone, the log-built one, That echoed to many a parting groan And natural prayer Of dying foemen mingled there -- Foemen at morn, but friends at eve -- Fame or country least their care: (What like a bullet can undeceive!) But now they lie low, While over them the swallows skim, And all is hushed at Shiloh.
Soldier Songs for Baritone
Song Cycle by Hugo Weisgall (1912 - 1997)
?. Shiloh  [sung text not yet checked]
Authorship:
- by Herman Melville (1819 - 1891), "Shiloh: A Requiem", appears in Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War, first published 1866
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View original text (without footnotes)Note: April 6th-7th, 1862, Shiloh, Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee: General Ulysses S. Grant, leading Union forces (Armies of the Tennessee and of the Ohio), defeated the Confederate Army of the Mississippi under Generals Albert Sidney Johnston and P. G. T. Beauregard. Almost 24,000 soldiers died in the battle.
1 Weisgall (?) : "cloudy" (needs to be confirmed)Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
?. The leveller  [sung text not yet checked]
Near Martinpuisch that night of hell Two men were struck by the same shell, Together tumbling in one heap Senseless and limp like slaughtered sheep. One was a pale eighteen-year-old, Girlish and thin and not too bold, Pressed for the war ten years too soon, The shame and pity of his platoon. The other came from far-off lands With bristling chin and whiskered hands, He had known death and hell before In Mexico and Ecuador. Yet in his death this cut-throat wild Groaned "Mother! Mother!" like a child, While that poor innocent in man's clothes Died cursing God with brutal oaths. Old Sergeant Smith, kindest of men, Wrote out two copies there and then Of his accustomed funeral speech To cheer the womenfolk of each.
Authorship:
- by Robert Graves (1895 - 1985), "The leveller"
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First published in New Statesman, January 1919Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
2. Suicide in the trenches  [sung text not yet checked]
I knew a simple soldier boy Who grinned at life in empty joy, Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, And whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum, With crumps and lice and lack of rum, He put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again. * * * * * You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you'll never know The hell where youth and laughter go.
Authorship:
- by Siegfried Lorraine Sassoon (1886 - 1967), "Suicide in the trenches", from Cambridge Magazine, February 1918, revised 1919
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , "Suicide dans les tranchées", copyright © 2017, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Please note: this text, provided here for educational and research use, is in the public domain in Canada, but it may still be copyright in other legal jurisdictions. The LiederNet Archive makes no guarantee that the above text is public domain in your country. Please consult your country's copyright statutes or a qualified IP attorney to verify whether a certain text is in the public domain in your country or if downloading or distributing a copy constitutes fair use. The LiederNet Archive assumes no legal responsibility or liability for the copyright compliance of third parties.
Confirmed with Siegfried Sassoon, COUNTER-ATTACK and other poems, E.P .Dutton and company, New York, 1918, page 31
Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Pierre Mathé [Guest Editor]
4. my sweet old etcetera
my sweet old etcetera . . . . . . . . . .— The rest of this text is not
currently in the database but will be
added as soon as we obtain it. —
Authorship:
- by E. E. (Edward Estlin) Cummings (1894 - 1962), appears in is 5, first published 1926, copyright ©
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This text may be copyright, so we will not display it until we obtain permission to do so or discover it is public-domain.7. Futility  [sung text not yet checked]
Move him into the sun - Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields [unsown]1. Always it woke him, even in France, Until this morning, and this snow. If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know. Think how it wakes the seed - Woke, once, the clays of a cold star. Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides, Full-nerved - still warm - too hard to stir? Was it for this the clay grew tall? - O what made fatuous sunbeams toil To break [earth's]2 sleep at all?
Authorship:
- by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918), "Futility"
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Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- FRE French (Français) (Pierre Mathé) , "Futilité", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
First published in Nation, 1918
1 in some editions, "half-sown"
2 Rands: "the earth's"
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]