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[Devilsadvocate]

Hope you enjoy this...

Und nun, liebe kinder, gebt fein acht:
Die wahrheit wird zu sand gemacht!
...Den streut man jenen in die Augen
die niemals fragen- alles glauben...
Die volle wahrheit zu ertragen
steht jenen an die Fragen fragen-
Nur dem der sie zu stellen wagt:
Und Gott hilf dem der Fragen fragt!

(My children- come and see this land
were truth has long since turned to sand
which wind will blow into the eyes
of those who never question lies...
The truth to bear is for those men
who dare to question- and who then
make asking their most pressing task:
And God help those who dare to ask...)

W.J.B

All material marked "W. J. B" is my own; anyone wanting to make use of this- feel free to do so (except commercial use, that is); just don't remove the "W.J.B", please. -Devilsadvocate-

This post has been edited by Devilsadvocate: Oct 6 2007, 11:36 AM

[Devilsadvocate]

The following poem was written by a woman called Eileen O'Shaughnessy. She was the first wife of Eric Arthur Blair- better known under his pen-name 'George Orwell'.
The poem is extremely relevant to his later novel '1984'; it was writen in 1934 and was a look ahead at a time 50 years in the future.

"End of the Century, 1984”
by Eileen O'Shaughnessy

Death

Synthetic winds have blown away
material dust- but this one room
rebukes the constant violet ray
and dustless sheds a dusty gloom...
Wrecked on the outmoded past
Lie North and Hillard, Virgil, Horace-
Shakespeare's bones are quiet at last,
dead as Yates or William Morris.
Have not the inmates earned their rest ?
A hundred circles traversed they,
complaining of the classic quest
and each inevitable day,
illogically trying to place
a ball within an empty space.


(The end:
The artificial winds of an artificial world have blown away the remains of the old natural world, but there is this one place-- a museum-- which withstands the constant sunset, appearing dusty and gloomy in its sterile way.
Here are found the outdated thinkers of the past:
North and Hillard-- who provided a number of prose composition books for Latin and Greek-
together with Virgil and Horace; even Shakespeare, Yates and William Morris have ended up here.
Have they not earned their rest- considering that they spend an eternity running around in circles, trying against their own better knowledge to explain the workings of the Cosmos...?)

Birth

Every loss is now a gain-
for every chance must follow reason;
a Crystal Palace meets the rain
which falls at its appointed season.
No book disturbs the lucid line-
for sun-bronzed scholars tune their thought
to telepathic station nine,
from which they know just what they ought:
The useful sciences; the arts
of telesalesmanship-- and Spanish
as registered in western parts.
Mental cremation that shall banish
relics: Philosophies and colds...
Manana-minded ten-year-olds.


(The beginning:
Losses are now interpreted as gains, since there is no space for 'mere chance' in a scientific world: The place were science is displayed can stand up to nature.
No book is in the way of this lucid-dream-assembly-line, for the educated workers producing the profit of loss are taught everything they ought to know by the mass-media:
The part of science which is useful, the arts of advertising-- and the knowledge of other countries or cultures as they are interpreted in the west.*
The mental memory-hole into which philosophies and other minor ailments are thrown:
This is the mentality of the ten-year-old who devours science-fiction-stories...

*The poem was written in 1934; during that year, a number of events took place in Spain which ultimately led to the Spanish civil war. The BBC reported these events- and later on the war- in a heavily slanted way.)

The Phoenix

Worlds have died that they may live:
May plume again their fairest feathers
and in their clearest songs may give
welcome to all spontaneous weathers.
Bacon's colleague is called Einstein,
Huxley shares platonic food-
violet rays are only sunshine:
Christened in the modern mood-
in this house if in no other--
past and future may agree
in a curious harmony
finding both a proper place
in the silken gowns embrace...


(Renewal:
Whole worlds have been destroyed so that these people could dream their foolish dreams:
May the greatest thinkers among them live again so that they can proclaim their support for a world in which the weather can not be controlled by science.
Bacon, Huxley, Einstein and Plato are all united here-- after all, the violet rays of sunset are just another form of sunshine.
When they are given their modern names, then in this museum- if nowhere else--beginning and end are no longer at odds; they both find their proper place in death:
In a circle, beginning and end are one and the same...)

Winston Smith, the main character in the novel, is 39 years old; he begins to write in his diary on April 4th 1984.
This means he must have been born somewhere between April 4th 1944 and April 4th 1945.
Eileen and Eric Blair adopted a baby boy called Horatio in June 1944, shortly after the Normandy landings.
The landings caused a feeling of euphoria in Britain: The end of the war was in sight...

Adopting that baby was a symbol of hope. The two must have been thinking and talking about the future a lot around that time.
Eileen spend two years working for Britain's "Ministry of Truth"- the Ministry for Information, in the censorship-department. Both she and Eric must have realised that the structures which had developed as a result of the war would not simply disappear.

On the day Horatio Blair was adopted, Winston Smith was conceived.

He was born nine months later... On March 29th 1945.
On that day, Eileen Maud O'Shaughnessy Blair died from the anaesthetic during a routine operation.

Violet rays are only sunshine...

http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=20740

(Edit: I just managed to not only post the wrong thing in the wrong thread, but also to erase the wrong bit... Corrected. Off to bed before I erase my profile around here...)


This post has been edited by Devilsadvocate: Aug 7 2011, 11:58 PM