Δεν μπορώ να μην το αντιγράψω. Τόσο λιτό, τόσο συγκλονιστικό.
Reconciliation
When you are standing at your hero’s grave,
Or near some homeless village where he died,
Remember, through your heart’s rekindling pride,
The German soldiers who were loyal and brave.
Men fought like brutes; and hideous things were done;
And you have nourished hatred, harsh and blind.
But in that Golgotha perhaps you’ll find
The mothers of the men who killed your son.
Χρόνια τα διάβαζα διάσπαρτα σε ανθολογίες και συλλογές τα ποιήματα του Σίγκφριντ Σασούν για τις εμπειρίες του από τα μέτωπα του Πρώτου Παγκοσμίου Πολέμου, και τα θαύμαζα για τον μοναδικό τρόπο με τον οποίο μιλούν για τη φρίκη του πολέμου, για την ανδρεία, για τη συντροφικότητα, για τον ανθρωπισμό. Τις προάλλες τα βρήκα συγκεντρωμένα σ’ ένα μικρό μεταχειρισμένο βιβλιαράκι, τα War Poems.
Dead Musicians
I
From you, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart,
The substance of my dreams took fire.
You built cathedrals in my heart,
And lit my pinnacled desire.
You were the ardour and the bright
Procession of my thoughts toward prayer.
You were the wrath of storm, the light
On distant citadels aflare.
II
Great names, I cannot find you now
In these loud years of youth that strives
Through doom toward peace: upon my brow
I wear a wreath of banished lives.
You have no part with lads who fought
And laughed and suffered at my side.
Your fugues and symphonies have brought
No memory of my friends who died.
III
For when my brain is on their track,
In slangy speech I call them back.
With fox-trot tunes their ghosts I charm.
‘Another little drink won’t do us any harm.’
I think of rag-time; a bit of rag-time;
And see their faces crowding round
To the sound of the syncopated beat.
They’ve got such jolly things to tell,
Home from hell with a Blighty wound so neat…
. . .
And so the song breaks off; and I’m alone.
They’re dead … For God’s sake stop that gramophone.
ΗΜΕΡΟΛΟΓΙΟ ΕΝΟΣ ΣΠΑΝΙΟΥ ΑΝΑΓΝΩΣΤΗ 