Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THAT IS WHY OUR SONS ARE HEROES, by PAUL FORT


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THAT IS WHY OUR SONS ARE HEROES, by                    
First Line: I was awaiting something else, my hopes were of a different kind
Last Line: That is why our sons are heroes!
Subject(s): Heroism; Memory; Soldiers; War; Heroes; Heroines


I was awaiting something else, my hopes were of a different kind:

I wished to give myself to you, great battles, as to great Nature I have given
myself; but I no longer understand you, you have become so supernatural!

Nature at least permitted me to suffer from my loves. But, battles, it is
eitherwise with you, who wish us all entire. Oh! I know the reason why, I know
it well.

Void of love save for that of the Fatherland, our soldiers, our sons for the
nature of France are dying.

But, battles, indeed one need not be too harsh. I, I suffer from love, and my
trouble comes from this.

And do you not believe that all our sons -- our heroes -- suffer more pangs from
love than from shrapnel-fire?

One calls them heroes because they fight so well. But was it to be soldiers they
were made? I, I call them heroes because they have given their youth and the
love they dare not weep.

Weep, yes, weep, O young soldier, shed tears more bitter than gall! If you do
not weep when 'tis the time for weeping, you will weep too much when you return,
when you come to your fatherland again and find no sweetheart waiting for you
there.
* * * * * * *
Weep, yes, weep, O young soldier, and shed great tears o'er the dwelling of your
father, shed in thought great tears o'er the dwelling of your father; -- you
have not the right to weep.

Your pride forbids it, and your chiefs would remind you of your country. But
does not one's country commence with the dwelling of one's father? or no matter
what it may be, at the hearth? -- No! no! forget all this. Your chiefs are
right. Do not weep.

Weep, yes, weep, O young soldier, and shed great tears o'er the soft hands of
your mother; shed in thought great tears o'er the hands of your mother; -- you
no longer have the right to weep.

Your new-fledged pride forbids it; and your reasoning chiefs are right. If your
country begins with the tender hands of your mother -- or, indeed, better still,
alas! with the heart of your love -- forget this, forget this, I tell you -- you
have not the right to weep.

Forget your childhood, forget its days of Spring, forget your father and mother,
forget your well-beloved.

Forget your memories, my son,
forget the cuckoos singing o'er the hills,
the slopes of the cliffs, the alder-wood, its curlews,
the bush of mulberries, the tree with its tufts of mistletoe,
the heather flowering on the arid down,
and, running towards the village and its hedges,
the stream that counts its pebbles like little coins,
and the lowing herds of kine, their udders full,
and, set in the very midst
of the prairie populous with capering beasts,
forget your home,
forget your home, forget its windows pure,
the smoke of the roof, the stone of the hearth,
the wise old clock, and the creaking press,
the copper basins in the kitchen's shade,
the scent of thyme and laurel.

Forget your childhood, forget its days of Spring, forget your father and mother,
forget your well-beloved.

Forget your memories, my child:
forget the bridge, the bell, your earliest love. . . . Would it not have been
better, O my father! O my mother! to envelop with swaddling-bands a piece of
wood, to wash little pebbles as does the stream, than to wash your son, than to
dress your baby dear, that he might come one day to this miserable pass, to this
rending pang of forgetting you -- even for his country? Would it not have been
better, my poor well-beloved, to embrace the wind than this youth who one day
would be false to you?

"But what would they embrace -- zounds! our fiancees? Oh! were there ever more
atrocious wounds? What will they see, the eyes of those that love us? -- My God!
if they were, if they were to fly from us? . . ."

That is why our sons are heroes!

Weep, yes, weep, O young soldier, shed tears as bitter as gall! If you do not
weep when it is the moment for weeping, you will weep too much when you return,
when you come to your fatherland again and find no sweetheart waiting for you
there.

But no! no! I blaspheme, no! You have not made a sad exchange. You do not weep?
-- Go, it is well, my son. -- Less your chiefs than your heart laid on you this
command. You have thrown yourself with gaiety of heart into this agony. "Long
live my Country and nothing but my Country!" -- That is your cry -- towards
death, awaiting death, in the filth, in the horrible sounds of fighting hand to
hand, in the streams of burning pitch. . . .

That is why our sons are heroes!





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