1914 by Wilfred Owen

Per Scriptum E. Wesley - Mackinac Center Intern

I won't have time to post anything big since I'm preparing for an Intern University lecture. However, in keeping with the Russell Kirk theme, here's a little poetic description of the beginning of the "Time of Trouble": WWI. In this poem, Wilfred Owen points out the end of a Western progress (something I would term as the false ideology of progressivism), and ties this in with the history of Western politics. Although he perhaps over-glorifies Greece and Rome, the idea is that the Western World is losing its luster. This fact is incontrovertible, but not inevitable for the future. Let us restore that which has been lost.

1914 by Wilfred Owen

War broke: and now the Winter of the world

With perishing great darkness closes in.

The foul tornado, centered at Berlin,

Is over all the width of Europe whirled,

Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled

Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin

Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin.

The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.

For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,

And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome,

An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,

A slow grand age, and rich with all increase.

But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need

Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.

Source:

Image of Royal Irish Rifles ration party Somme July 1916 from Wikipedia