July 1, 2006

“Let us sleep now” | Souvenir

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Souvenir. For those who fell in the Battle of the Somme, 1916.

Requiescant in pace.

The Prince Of Wales has laid a wreath in northern France to mark the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Somme.

More than 19,000 British soldiers died on the first day of the battle — the British Army’s worst day — and 125,000 died over the next five months.

posted by in history, memory, music, poetry, war | * | 1 comment 

comments

  1. Sheila Ryan on July 1st, 2006 at 5:28 pm

    Both “let us sleep now” and “requiescant in pace” echo the finale of Benjamin Britten’s magnificent War Requiem, the text of which coupled the Mass for the Dead with nine poems by Wilfred Owen.

    I am not concerned with Poetry. My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity. Yet these elegies are to this generation in no sense conciliatory. They may be to the next. All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful. (Wilfred Owen)


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