by Aquila89 » Tue Dec 15, 2015 12:11 am
Two poems by Andreas Gryphius (recent events made me think of them). He was a 16th century German poet and he experienced the devastation of the Thirty Years War firsthand.
Tears of the Fatherland, Anno Domini 1636
Entire, more than entire have we been devastated!
The maddened clarion, the bold invaders' horde,
The mortar thunder-voiced, the blood-anointed sword
Have all men's sweat and work and store annihilated.
The towers stand in flames, the church is violated,
The strong are massacred, a ruin our council board,
Our maidens raped, and where my eyes have scarce explored
Fire, pestilence, and death my heart have dominated.
Here through the moat and town runs always new-let blood,
And for three-times-six years our very rivers' flood
With corpses choked has pressed ahead in tedious measure;
I shall not speak of that which is still worse than death,
And crueller than the plague and torch and hunger's breath:
From many has been forced even the spirit's treasure.
Epitaph of Mariana Gryphius
Written in honor of his baby niece who was born and died one day old, as her parents fled a besieged town
I: born in flight, breathing the smoke of war,
ringed round with fire and steel, my father's care,
my mother's pain, was thrust into the light
as my land sank in angry, burning night.
I saw the world, and soon I looked away,
since all its terrors met me on one day.
Though I died young, if only days are told,
count up my fears, and I was very old.
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.
--Carl Jung