an impressionist

James Brown was featured in a poem by Muhammad Ali (who decided (I love his enthusiasm) that he was the world's greatest poet, and also, that he was the king of all poets)

Gen George Patton's reincarnation poem "through a glass, and darkly"

Through the travail of the ages,

Midst the pomp and toil of war,
I have fought and strove and perished
Countless times upon this star.

In the form of many people
In all panoplies of time
Have I seen the luring vision
Of the Victory Maid, sublime.

I have battled for fresh mammoth,
I have warred for pastures new,
I have listed to the whispers
When the race trek instinct grew.

I have known the call to battle
In each changeless changing shape
From the high souled voice of conscience
To the beastly lust for rape.

I have sinned and I have suffered,
Played the hero and the knave;
Fought for belly, shame, or country,
And for each have found a grave.

I cannot name my battles
For the visions are not clear,
Yet, I see the twisted faces
And I feel the rending spear.

Perhaps I stabbed our Savior
In His sacred helpless side.
Yet, I've called His name in blessing
When after times I died.

In the dimness of the shadows
 Where we hairy heathens warred,
I can taste in thought the lifeblood;
We used teeth before the sword.

While in later clearer vision
 I can sense the coppery sweat,
Feel the pikes grow wet and slippery
When our Phalanx, Cyrus met.

Hear the rattle of the harness
 Where the Persian darts bounced clear,
 See their chariots wheel in panic
 From the Hoplite's leveled spear.

 See the goal grow monthly longer,
 Reaching for the walls of Tyre.
Hear the crash of tons of granite,
 Smell the quenchless eastern fire.

Still more clearly as a Roman,
 Can I see the Legion close,
As our third rank moved in forward
And the short sword found our foes.

 Once again I feel the anguish
 Of that blistering treeless plain
When the Parthian showered death bolts,
And our discipline was in vain.

 I remember all the suffering
Of those arrows in my neck.
Yet, I stabbed a grinning savage
As I died upon my back.

Once again I smell the heat sparks
When my Flemish plate gave way
And the lance ripped through my entrails
As on Crecy's field I lay.

 In the windless, blinding stillness
Of the glittering tropic sea
I can see the bubbles rising
Where we set the captives free.

Midst the spume of half a tempest
 I have heard the bulwarks go
When the crashing, point blank round shot
 Sent destruction to our foe.

 I have fought with gun and cutlass
 On the red and slippery deck
 With all Hell aflame within me
 And a rope around my neck.

And still later as a General
 Have I galloped with Murat
 When we laughed at death and numbers
Trusting in the Emperor's Star.

 Till at last our star faded,
And we shouted to our doom
 Where the sunken road of Ohein
 Closed us in it's quivering gloom.

So but now with Tanks a'clatter
Have I waddled on the foe
Belching death at twenty paces,
 By the star shell's ghastly glow.

 So as through a glass, and darkly
 The age long strife I see
Where I fought in many guises,
 Many names, but always me.

And I see not in my blindness
 What the objects were I wrought,
 But as God rules o'er our bickerings
It was through His will I fought.

 So forever in the future,
Shall I battle as of yore,
 Dying to be born a fighter,
But to die again, once more.

Found on the Star Trek Next Generation, said by Data

https://lolotehe.tumblr.com/post/186453436062/captainsblogsupplemental-oboe-youdidnt

For the Fallen, by Laurence Binyon Source: The London Times (1914)

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
 Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
 Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.