Thursday, August 18, 2016

Lichfield Cathedral - Before Action installation highlights

Luxmuralis highlights from Before Action installation at Lichfield Cathedral
with poetry readings from Eddie Redmayne.

Eddie Redmayne has lent his support to an exhibition at Lichfield Cathedral to commemorate the 
Battle of the Somme. Visitors could see him reciting four war poems. Part of the exhibition also 
involved light projections on the walls and floor of the Cathedral. - BBC News video here


“By all the days that I have lived 
Make me a solider, Lord.”




By all the glories of the day,
And the cool evening's benison, 
By that last sunset touch that lay, 
Upon the hills when day was done, 
By beauty lavishly outpoured, 
And blessings carelessly received, 
By all the days that I have lived, 
Make me a soldier, Lord.

By all of man's hopes and fears, 
And all the wonders poets sing, 
The laughter of unclouded years, 
And every sad and lovely thing;
By the romantic ages stored
With high endeavour that was his, 
By all his mad catastrophes 
Make me a man, O Lord.

I, that on my unfamiliar hill 
Saw with uncomprehending eyes 
A hundred of thy sunsets spill 
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice, 
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword 
Must say good-bye to all of this;- 
By all delights that I shall miss, 
Help me to die, O Lord.



“And soon the slow, stray blood came creeping
From the intruding lead, like ants on track.”


“Who knows? Who hopes? Who troubles? Let it pass!
He sleeps. He sleeps less tremulous, less cold,
Than we who wake, and waking say Alas!”



Under his helmet, up against his pack, 
After so many days of work and waking, 
Sleep took him by the brow and laid him back. 

There, in the happy no-time of his sleeping, 
Death took him by the heart. There heaved a quaking 
Of the aborted life within him leaping, 
Then chest and sleepy arms once more fell slack. 

And soon the slow, stray blood came creeping 
From the intruding lead, like ants on track. 
Whether his deeper sleep lie shaded by the shaking 
Of great wings, and the thoughts that hung the stars, 
High-pillowed on calm pillows of God's making, 
Above these clouds, these rains, these sleets of lead, 
And these winds' scimitars, 
-Or whether yet his thin and sodden head 
Confuses more and more with the low mould, 
His hair being one with the grey grass 
Of finished fields, and wire-scrags rusty-old, 
Who knows? Who hopes? Who troubles? Let it pass! 
He sleeps. He sleeps less tremulous, less cold, 
Than we who wake, and waking say Alas!



Read more about the project and watch Eddie's video in my earlier posts here:

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