Forgotten Ground Regained
Brotherhood of Men
Originally published by The Banyan Press, 1949.
Reprinted with permission of the Claude Fredericks Foundation, Pawlet, Vermont.
Brotherhood of Men and Auden's Age of Anxiety were among the few long alliterative poems published in the first half of the 20th Century. Brotherhood of Men describes one of the horrors of World War II: U.S. prisoners of war, captured by the Japanese at Corregidor in the Philipines, were forced to march to a jungle prison camp in the infamous "Bataan Death March". The survivors, brutally treated, were kept in prison camps until the war ended.
- I
Caught there, then, on the Rock, at CorregidorCaged with the enemy, sleeples in inexactnessThe mind wavering with wishes of decisions,Fear frequented the bowels in their fury.Actor I was, avid of answers, egress,Hungry there in a hovel, had to steal food,Harry inventiveness, deft of devices.Had to creep by the inching invadersLifting my life in my hands, lily-livered,With motives of man’s ancient menaceDared danger, gave to a dying friend.Often eased the enemy, agile of acquiescence,Stole drugs from the cupboard, mates to maintain.Saw tortures and tall tales expedited,Urged the underground, close escapes lived with.Lined up with the blistered, the intrepid,Passive at bayonet point in the belly.Flinched not, was cast down with the feckless,Pretender on purpose, mastering machination.Thought of home and youth as sickness prevailed,The shining sitters at stately banquets,Lofty in lapsing dreams as dooms eventuated,Blind in trust, wondered forever of survival,Cupped heads in my hands at baleful midnights,Waxed wary only companions to save,Thought nothing of self, nightmares of dyings.Bones softened by black malnutrition,Bloated were heads and legs ulcerous,Never gave in to the enemy, found fierceStore in physical love for dying brothers,Wondered on wakening how I survived oftWith strength to stall the staggering,Played opossum to the enemy’s piercing examinations,Smiled saintly, collaborated clearly,Never gave in to the enemy, death was common.
Came ruthless purgation of the pale living,Undreamed of excruciations, excrement of prison,Diseased men doled on the death march of Bataain.Fatigue was early, fierce was the fury,Blazed by bayonets side-fellows fell,Stumbled stalwarts, cursed many,Crazy became some in the best of hatred,Infernal the features of famished men,The enemy edged us in, egged us on,Violence of life in the vividness of madness,Kept by miracle of man’s sufferanceSome semblance of order, reduction to essence,First blanch of weakness was first broached.Down to the doom of man’s mastery of self,Fate was fearful, fate dandled the balance.Strong those seemed who cracked first, cried,Crumbled in clairvoyance to butt-stroke of rifle.Miles were nightmares, water was absent,Mercy was nowhere, but stood the gaff,Wonder of wonders, never knew how.Hardest was not to move muscleWhen friends were violated; vicious visitationsAnd violent strokes ebbed the naked strength.Eyes should not see such sangine spectacle,Death not dare such darting depravity.Retaliators were whipped, naked were whacked,Were cuffed quailing, piercd with pikes.Soonest were doomed those who cared aught,Care for others in the carking tribulation.Kept as if eventless, played against the enemy,Looked not sidewise, helped not the helpless;Cunning of the canny bred continuance.Survived the death march; men are makeshift,Weary of wishes to kill every one, weary.The enemy of watching comedy of twitches.Favored by nature were the wan survivors.
- II
Came lassitude and despair of the mind,Mounted months of weakness, filth of fellows,Pain of realization, poison of water.Death was daisy, the mind followed fictions,Spirit was luckless, lack of news told.Emaciation was the flag of emancipationDeath waved at the doors always closed.And then was transferred to Cabanatuan.Sweaty and reckless, but holding to truthThought of turn of the nightmare tide,Was able to steal in the stalking midnights,Gave grace of grain to lads groaning,Maggots were many, relished with rice,Bitterness of necessity, better nourishment.And thoughts of home hale in the States,Impossible presentiments of feverish dreams,Vast vistas of times impossible.Heard months later of fates foregone,Heard the curt shots of ones caught,Mentally deranged were many, no mail came.Enemy was endless, workers were listless,The down were soon out, the dead were left days.Turned at night to clasp our friend dying,Shield him; woke clasping a death’s head.
Monsters were moving; sickness was established,Endurance was endless, never was mercy.Were mild, many, with infection, lips were livid,Heads swelled like cabbages before the soft death-rattle.Came days of dispatch, was chosen with others,Knew nothing, but was sailing by ship.Rumors ran, shipoment of prisoners to Japan.The heart lifted somewhat, but dazed was desire,Man suffering much cannot believe early.Little knew those of the perils impending.Haggard by hundreds, thrown into the hold,Heat staggered the stifling; time wore onAs we wavered in the knowledge of the water,Packed like pigs, herded in jeopardy,Mass and mess of mankind standing up,Heat harried us, parched were people,Panic mounted in pandemonium,Merciless was the murderous sun, murderousThe enemy with machine-guns at the hold’s top.Days unendurable, the dead fallen were trampled,In desperation, doughty, doomed countrymenClimbed on others, climed the hot iron ladder,At top were shot down, fell on their fellows.So close were packed all was a clenching,Madness was manifest, infernal the struggle,Urine was drunk by many, rampant was chaos,Came wild men at each other, held off attackers,Some slit the throats of the dead,Drank the blood outright, howled wailing,Slit the wrists of the living, othersWith knives, or with fangs ravenous,I saw them drinking the blood of victims,Hell I was in, this was immitigible Hell.Endless hours fought off famished, crazed attackers.Savage the senses in dreams of delirium,Never knew how I surrendered not,Saw clearly my mother in the midst of terror:‘Persevere. Persevere. Persevere. Persevere.’Faith beyond reason, wrecked beyond words,I dogged clung, daft before danger,Dazed by disaster, damned in the hold.And hung on God knows how, saved by my naure.Some peculiarity of nature saved me, hundreds perished.Would never have won, but our own planesCame hungry, hunting enemy ships.Knew not our own men were therein.Bomb blast in the hold next killed all there,We were as if raised out of water,Clambered to deck tottering and reckless,Gone were victors, machine-guns vacated,Like bales of lumber dead were stacked on the decks.Caught handfuls of sugar from wrenched sacks,Stuffed mouth, pockets; jumped over, water revived me,Saw the shore and swam to save me.Some seventy swam, of all holds’ hundreds.The enemy entered the clearing, commanded us.A marine’s leg was shattered, smoked calmlyOne cigarette discovered; clasp-knife severed his leg.(Heroes were many). He died gamely.
A summed spectacle in the sultry sunlightOur sapped band was, after hellish onslaught.We stiffened our resources, bonds were breakless.Speechless were the depths of humanity,We were the living, no time for understanding.Again the enemy did not kill us,Ammunition doubtless sparse on this island.But took our shoes, practically fatal,None could hope to escape without themAnd live long in the barbed jungles;Soon would be forfeit to tortures of thorns.Weakness persisted; rest was undertaken,Watery rice with maggots always our ration.Now numbness of spirit prevailed; what moreCould happen? How long could man endureUnknowable fate? A ship came to take us,This time without torture we got to Japan.
- III
My mind was heavy and my luck was dark,From chaos I came, to greater chaos went,Stubborn of spirit, subtle suborner,Four years in prisons and vile execrationsI endured, and worked to save my companions.Fame I never had at home among fellows, was neverKnown as the bright who knew where he was going,Suffered severely from cul-de-sac sensations,But I had animal cunning, abundantly,Reserves I had that were boundless, idiot cunning.I did better, being instinct with the basic,Undeluded of delusions, had knowledge of nature,Queerness quested my queerness, madness not maimed me,Basilisk my eye baleful to baneful totality,Delicate my decisions due to no dearth of nature,But to strangeness I gave ever strange nurture.The normal, those with notions preconceived,Died early, or died late, but always died.To tet them so far nature never intended,It took madness to fight madness, savage simplicity,To slay savagery, slights of mind for savagery,Tricks of balance and tenacious trickery.Fared lax like one in the forfeited herd,Yet indefinable nature used my example yearly.I, weak, had strength beyond the strongest,Wounds I wore out, amazing to myself.Held, helpless, to the help of Heaven,Expected death at every ditch,Only hope was the help of helping others.I observed those survived best were feminine,Fared on duplicity, dark deceivers;Most male were most manhandled, maimed.Womanish men were puckish, pictures of Psyche.The enemy sensed their lack of enmity,Entered they had into subtle sympathy,Fragile balances saved them savage bayonets.
Winter came in heathenish hell-holes,Water was wicked, cold was killing,And never knew how the war was going.Slept with diseased brothers to keep off the cold.Low was language, life left us slowly,Some sank into states of sodden trance,Longing to lie in cold bed and to die,Weary of spirit, would not wake, will-less.Warned the waning, months at a time,In coughing nights of incurable cold,Tempted to bend to the bed of death beckoningBeyond disease’s ravage, blessing of rest endless.Peculiarity of nature nerved me nevertheless,Locked in bunks befouled with bloating brothers,I forced fellows to follow me, fall on the floor,Get out of beds where they were breathing only,And stand in dark days against compulsion of death.Broken bones were left to brokenness,Festering flesh ws guest to feebleness.Work was a wisdom and kept the mind alive,Worked for nine months sewing buttonholes.Long had forgotten of justice, but neverOf justicing; never gave in to the enemy,Never surrendered, the enemy was myself.Monthly made him think I loved him,In some strange manner I loved my captor,I belonged to mankind, all were responsible.In his place would I not have done the same?My bayonet would not have pierced the plucky,Hatred would halt somewhere, heavy of heart.We were only soldiers doing our duty,All imprisoned in primal curses,All commanded by evil in man’s nature.Learned in the longest years of my life,In depths of dejections, disjunctive thralls,Grains of good in the coldest killers,Quest of kindness of the unbelievers,Qualms of conscience, costliness of guilt.Enormous it was, and frail were all,Victim and victor alike vacillated.Error was everywhere, ever flagellant,Freakish the force of death or survival.Each event and trial was unique,No law held for all operations.In gruelling slowness of gravid timeNever saw women, forgotten were children.
- IV
Rumors of liberation. We could not believe it.Liberation came. Planes came over parachutingPackages. One plummeted through a sky-light,Broke one of our legs. Greedy as children,We ate chocolate until we were sick,Suspect bellies could not stand it.It would take us years to get well,Our bones soft and easily breakable.My hand broke, opening the door of a car.
Rings I have, watches, tokens, a dog tagTo take back to the land of the living,From the dead to deliver to fathers or sisters,Cherished possessons of my luckless companionsLost in four years of staggering warfare.O to forget, forget the fever and famine,The fierceness of visions, the faith beyond reason,To forget man’s lot in the folly of man.And swear never to kill a living being,To live for love, the lost country of man’s longing.
And yet I know (a knowledge unspeakable)That we were at our peak when in the depths,Lived close to life when cuffed by death,Had visions of brotherhood when we were brokoen,Learned compssion beyond the curse of passion,And never in after years those left to liveWould treat with truth as in those savage times,And sometimes wish that they had diedAs did those many crying in their arms.
Copyright © The Banyan Press, 1949
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