South of the Line, inland from far Durban,
A mouldering soldier lies - your countryman.
Awry and doubled up are his gray bones,
And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans
Nightly to clear Canopus: "I would know
By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law
Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?
And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking 'Anno Domini' to the years?
Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died”
A mouldering soldier lies - your countryman.
Awry and doubled up are his gray bones,
And on the breeze his puzzled phantom moans
Nightly to clear Canopus: "I would know
By whom and when the All-Earth-gladdening Law
Of Peace, brought in by that Man Crucified,
Was ruled to be inept, and set aside?
And what of logic or of truth appears
In tacking 'Anno Domini' to the years?
Near twenty-hundred livened thus have hied,
But tarries yet the Cause for which He died”
Contributed by Bernart Bartleby - 2017/11/9 - 16:06
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Versi di Thomas Hardy, nella raccolta “Poems of the Past and the Present” pubblicata nel 1901
Poesia messa in musica da John Pierre Herman Joubert, compositore sudafricano classe 1927, e poi anche da Garth Baxter, compositore statunitense classe 1946
Una delle molte poesie di Thomas Hardy che si riferiscono alla seconda delle cosiddette “guerre boere”, combattute in Sudafrica in due riprese (1880-1881 e poi 1899-1902) tra gli inglesi e i coloni di origine olandese, detti boeri.
Originariamente il testo si concludeva dopo 8 versi, ma l’attacco che Thomas Hardy subì dopo la pubblicazione della poesia sulla Westminster Gazette lo indusse a rafforzare la sua posizione assolutamente contraria a quella guerra coloniale. Così aggiunse una quartina in cui, nel paragone tra il soldato ucciso (è il suo fantasma a parlare) ed il Cristo crocifisso, Hardy non risparmiava un attacco alla Chiesa come entità che da duemila anni benedice le guerre e nasconde la vera causa dell’assassinio di Gesù Cristo.