The Thousandth Regiment - 19. "We, beneath iron spray from the batteries"

I gave this translation a heart -like, not because I like the idea of Hans in this situation in any way, but it is for you. Because this is so depressing, horrible and cruel, what Hans describes and I know what effect it has and still you go through all this and dedicate your work and effort. My mind being busy with a later sonnet of Hans tonight, this one seems like a dark and loud prophecy to his own fate.

It is interesting, but some of these poems appear very loud in my inner ear, some very quiet and sometimes the stanzas seem to have invisible musical symbols for their dynamic. I wonder, if only I feel this way.

Hans describes hell for us. A modern day Dante, he can only give us a taste of his experience, yet it is enough to make any reader forswear war forever. 

Hans anger and disdain is in every line and what he describes is horrific.. but this is war in all its evil glory  

The last two lines of the second stanza really stuck out to me. 

On 9/10/2019 at 1:45 PM, Lyssa said:

I gave this translation a heart -like, not because I like the idea of Hans in this situation in any way, but it is for you. Because this is so depressing, horrible and cruel, what Hans describes and I know what effect it has and still you go through all this and dedicate your work and effort. My mind being busy with a later sonnet of Hans tonight, this one seems like a dark and loud prophecy to his own fate.

It is interesting, but some of these poems appear very loud in my inner ear, some very quiet and sometimes the stanzas seem to have invisible musical symbols for their dynamic. I wonder, if only I feel this way.

Thank you, Lyssa. I am dedicated to doing what I can for these poems. The higher up in the numbered sonets I go, the more difficult they become. There are emotional challenges as well as literary ones. His voice does seem to grow in its prophetic strength, and that makes his human life seem all the more precious to me. So many great artists, writers, tinkers -- and yes, poets -- were lost in the First World War, we all stand knowing we're empty-handed and thinking about what might have been.

Thank you, as always, for your comments and support    

On 9/10/2019 at 5:57 PM, Parker Owens said:

Hans describes hell for us. A modern day Dante, he can only give us a taste of his experience, yet it is enough to make any reader forswear war forever. 

Thank you, Parker. There are so many allusions in this poem, it is like an Expressionist tableau. It is perhaps the verbal equivalent to some of the war drawings and painting by Otto Dix in the 1920s. 

Thanks again for reading and sharing your thoughts. I appreciate it  

On 9/11/2019 at 4:32 PM, Defiance19 said:

Hans anger and disdain is in every line and what he describes is horrific.. but this is war in all its evil glory  

The last two lines of the second stanza really stuck out to me. 

Thank you, Def. Yes, Hans uses the allusion of transformation of the land via the soldiers' blood. I believe in a way he is saying or acknowledging how things can never be the same again. I imagine his "we," the firsthand witnesses on the front lines, were intimately aware of this no-going-back situation. And they knew long before the people back home (or in the military high commands in London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and St. Petersburg) had a sense that their old way of life was dead on the war fronts too.