Our Minds Are Married, But We Are Too Young

Our minds are married, but we are too young 

For wedlock by the customs of this age 

When parent homes pen each in seperate cage 

And only supper-earning songs are sung. 

 

Times past, when medieval woods were green, 

Babes were betrothed, and that betrothal brief. 

Remember Romeo in love and grief 

- Those star-crossed lovers - Juliet was fourteen. 

 

Times past, the caveman by his new-found fire 

Rested beside his mate in woodsmoke's scent. 

By our own fireside we shall rest content 

Fifty years hence keep troth with hearts desire. 

 

We shall remember, when our hair is white, 

These clouded days revealed in radiant light.

 

 

George Orwell

Given to Jacintha Buddicom, Christmas 1918

The Pagan

So here are you, and here am I, 

Where we may thank our gods to be; 

Above the earth, beneath the sky, 

Naked souls alive and free. 

The autumn wind goes rustling by 

And stirs the stubble at our feet; 

Out of the west it whispering blows, 

Stops to caress and onward goes, 

Bringing its earthy odours sweet. 

See with what pride the the setting sun 

Kinglike in gold and purple dies, 

And like a robe of rainbow spun 

Tinges the earth with shades divine. 

That mystic light is in your eyes 

And ever in your heart will shine.

 

 

George Orwell

Written autumn 1918 and sent to Jacintha Buddicom

Kitchener

No stone is set to mark his nation's loss, 

No stately tomb enshrines his noble breast; 

Not e'en the tribute of a wooden cross 

Can mark this hero's rest. 

 

He needs them not, his name untarnished stands, 

Remindful of the mighty deeds he worked, 

Footprints of one, upon time's changeful sands, 

Who ne'er his duty shirked. 

 

Who follows in his steps no danger shuns, 

Nor stoops to conquer by a shameful deed, 

An honest and unselfish race he runs, 

From fear and malice freed.

 

 

George Orwell

The Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard, 21 July 1916

Awake! Young Men of England

Awake! Young Men of England 

 

Oh! give me the strength of the Lion, 

The wisdom of reynard the Fox 

And then I'll hurl troops at the Germans 

And give them the hardest of knocks. 

 

Oh! think of the War Lord's mailed fist, 

That is striking at England today: 

And think of the lives that our soldiers 

Are fearlessly throwing away. 

 

Awake! Oh you young men of England, 

For if, when your Country's in need, 

You do not enlist by the thousand, 

You truly are cowards indeed.

 

 

George Orwell

The Henley and South Oxfordshire Standard, 2 October 1914

A Little Poem

A happy vicar I might have been 

Two hundred years ago 

To preach upon eternal doom 

And watch my walnuts grow;

 

But born, alas, in an evil time, 

I missed that pleasant haven, 

For the hair has grown on my upper lip 

And the clergy are all clean-shaven.
 

And later still the times were good, 

We were so easy to please, 

We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep 

On the bosoms of the trees.
 

All ignorant we dared to own 

The joys we now dissemble; 

The greenfinch on the apple bough 

Could make my enemies tremble.
 

But girl’s bellies and apricots, 

Roach in a shaded stream, 

Horses, ducks in flight at dawn, 

All these are a dream.
 

It is forbidden to dream again; 

We maim our joys or hide them: 

Horses are made of chromium steel 

And little fat men shall ride them.
 

I am the worm who never turned, 

The eunuch without a harem; 

Between the priest and the commissar 

I walk like Eugene Aram;
 

And the commissar is telling my fortune 

While the radio plays,

But the priest has promised an Austin Seven, 

For Duggie always pays.
 

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls, 

And woke to find it true; 

I wasn’t born for an age like this; 

Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?

 

 

George Orwell

1936