In balance with this life, this death

World War I  ended on this day one hundred years ago.

I cannot even imagine it.  Neither could my parents; my father was 4 years old; my mother, 3 years old. 

But I know much more about that war and its continuing reverberations because I teach a course called Modernity in Literature to university students.  I've taught it first in 2010, and have taught it about five times since then. I will teach it again this Spring semester. The literature tells so much.

Here is one poem by William Butler Yeats:

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death
W. B. Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.