No Fixed Plans

The Starlight Night By Gerald Manley Hopkins Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!     O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!     The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!  Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves'-eyes!  The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!     Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!     Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!   Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.  Buy then! bid then! — What? — Prayer, patience, alms, vows.  Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!     Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!  These are indeed the barn; withindoors house  The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse     Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows. 

In honor of Veterans' Day (aka Remembrance Day or Armistice Day) I'm sharing photos of Civil War and WWI veterans. Also, I'm adding my grandfathers' WWI draft cards and some WWI poetry videos. To see more inspired nostalgia/history click here for Sepia Saturday goodies. Glenney, S. W, photographer.  Unidentified Civil War veteran / S.W. Glenney, Waterbury, Conn . United States, None. [Waterbury, conn.: s.w. glenney, between 1879 and 1885] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017659657/. Bain News Service, Publisher.  Pershing Veterans . , 1918. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014706939/. Borah, C. W, photographer.   Two unidentified Civil War veterans / C.W. Borah, photographer, S.W. corner High & Town Streets, Columbus, Ohio . United States, None. [Columbus, ohio: c.w. borah, photographer, s.w. corner high & town streets, between 1880 and 1910] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017660606/. Harris & Ewing, photographer.  Young veteran soldier ...

 Siegried Sasson's "Aftermath" Wilfred Owen's "The Sentinel"

  To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence I who am dead a thousand years, And wrote this sweet archaic song, Send you my words for messengers The way I shall not pass along. I care not if you bridge the seas, Or ride secure the cruel sky, Or build consummate palaces Of metal or of masonry. But have you wine and music still, And statues and a bright-eyed love, And foolish thoughts of good and ill, And prayers to them who sit above? How shall we conquer? Like a wind That falls at eve our fancies blow, And old Mæonides the blind Said it three thousand years ago. O friend unseen, unborn, unknown, Student of our sweet English tongue, Read out my words at night, alone: I was a poet, I was young. Since I can never see your face, And never shake you by the hand, I send my soul through time and space To greet you. You will understand.