Classic and Contemporary Poetry
GOD AND MY COUNTRY, by EDGAR LEE MASTERS Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: He had the bluest eyes I ever saw Last Line: "to get some cigarettes and some shaving blades." Subject(s): Fathers & Sons; Soldiers; World War I; First World War | ||||||||
He had the bluest eyes I ever saw, And a smiling face like a bed of yellow daisies, And a voice around the house like a pet crow. And he went whistling through the yard and rooms, His hands grimed up with grease about machines, Which he could take apart and put together. And he could run a motor boat or a car. Or mend a telephone or a dynamo. And he knew novels, poetry and science. And he could swim, and box and run a race. And on a morning I went in his room And saw his naked body, saw his shoulders As broad as a great wrestler's, and his arms As big as mine. He started to play bear, And took me in his arms and hugged me so I felt my ribs crack. Then I wondered when He had quit wearing stockings and knee breeches, And when it was he slipped to seventeen, Became a man. And so the war came on. He tried to be a flyer, for he knew What engines were and all about machines And he knew trigonometry, and chemistry, And wireless telegraphy -- but his age Debarred him from the flyers; so he chafed And did not whistle as he used to do, But growled a little like a yearling bear. And then his face grew bright again: he had gone, Enlisted in the army, came to me, His face all glowing: "Everything I am You taught to me," he said; "to love the truth, To love democracy and America. And now we have a war, the very first When men could fight to bring democracy. Our country turned against the revolution In France, which was a democratic cause, But now we war to bring democracy To peoples everywhere, and I am off. God moves among us, and to serve and die Are blessings, I am happy, and am off." He terrified me with his shining face, His blue eyes, beautiful body, slim and strong. St. George was not more beautiful. I was awed, And said to him: "You terrify me, boy. There are plenty of men to go, await the call; Go if they call you, but you have your school, And if you go you'll never go to school Again, and that will leave you half prepared For life, you'll feel it all the rest of life." But he stood up so straight and stern and shining And said: "I owe this service to you, Dad, For what you've been and taught me, and I owe it To God and to my country." So it was He terrified me, and I said: "My boy, I am not wise enough, after all, to say What you should do. Perhaps you have a vision -- You are America come to herself; A vision and a mission and a glory Perhaps, perhaps. I step aside. Go on!" They took him to a camp, and in a week I went to see him. He was in a pen Like a prize porker, looked a little down. He had been shot with vaccines of all sorts. He didn't say much. Two weeks after that I saw him and he had a cold he caught From doing picket duty in the rain And sleeping on a mattress soaked with rain. The food was pretty good, not very good. He whispered: "All the pin-heads in the world Have got the jobs of officers. I'm surprised. I know more mathematics than they do, And more of everything. I thought an officer Was educated. Well, I am surprised." He said the boys were dying right and left Because they had no care. And on a day When he came home to visit for a while He was stricken with the flu. I telephoned The officer, who raved and said no trick Would go with him. He'd send for him. He did, And took him out with a raging temperature, And back to camp. He almost died for that. And, when he got up, wobbled for some weeks. And about the time he stood up fairly strong They shipped him off to Europe; and they went Yelling like tigers smelling blood, and God Seemed farthest from their thoughts. Well, so it went. And after while we had the armistice, The war was over, but no letter came. Where was he? Dead? We couldn't learn a thing. Until at last this boy who went to fight For God and for democracy landed up In Russia fighting democracy, as America Fought France in eighteen hundred -- for a letter Came to us telling where he was. And there He stayed some months and fought for covenants Arrived at in the open, independence Of little and big peoples, for the sea's Freedom, or democracy, I'm not sure, For one of these or all, I am not sure. He got through anyway, or they got through With him, perhaps, for he came back at last, One eye out and one leg gone, and he'd lost God, so he said, and didn't use the word Democracy at all, and, as for war, He said to me: "What is it? Everything Has its own idea, and the idea of war Is killing people? That's our job, that's war! And everybody yells atrocities, And everybody does 'em -- what the hell Do people think war is, a Sunday School? I want some money, Dad, for I am broke; And I can't work at much now, and, by God, I think I'll write my story. So they'll know They use you, and they fool you, and you die That some one may make money selling stuff, Or grab off lands or commerce. Hell's delight! When I was sick in Russia, had delusions, I saw a snake so big he wrapped the world And swallowed it with everybody in it. You see, the snake's the money-men, big business, The schemers, human buzzards, who eat up Young fellows and the kids, and lay on fat With fresh young blood that wants to shed itself For God and truth! I killed a Russian soldier And said: 'You bastard,' as I stuck him through, You hate yourself, so you just kill to glut Your hatred of yourself, your cruelty Which lusts, as it can masquerade behind The mask of duty. Give me a dollar, Dad, To get some cigarettes and some shaving blades." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...D'ANNUNZIO by ERNEST HEMINGWAY 1915: THE TRENCHES by CONRAD AIKEN TO OUR PRESIDENT by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE HORSES by KATHARINE LEE BATES CHILDREN OF THE WAR by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE U-BOAT CREWS by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE RED CROSS NURSE by KATHARINE LEE BATES WAR PROFITS by KATHARINE LEE BATES THE UNCHANGEABLE by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: ALEXANDER THROCKMORTON by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |
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