Vergissmeinnicht by Keith Douglas

Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing. As we came on
that day, he hit my tank with one
like the entry of a demon.

Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
the dishonored picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht.
in a copybook gothic script.

We see him almost with content,
abased, and seeming to have paid
and mocked at by his own equipment
that's hard and good when he's decayed.

But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.

             The first thing that needs to be said is that “vergissmeinnicht” can either mean the flower, Forget-me-not, or the phrase “forget me not”, which is perhaps more applicable to this poem (but metaphors can be gleaned from the first.) From this, this small notation adds to the vibe that Douglas is trying to convey, a detached (one must either know German or at least understand the phrase to fully comprehend the poem, and Douglas gives no personal feeling on the subject) yet also profound meaning (just look to the last verse, this is probably the best example of this.)

            The meaning that is most fitting is the classic of how man is full of evil and hurt, but also of love, and how we can destroy things that are dear to others and us. The cadaver in the poem is the symbol of this duality, where the main character’s first impression of him in life was “like that of an entry of a demon.” However, in death, he is a calm, prostrate, almost more humane figure, with a note from his loved one that in his last moments was reading (a gunpit is a slit in a trench where a barrel of a gun rests) representing the humanity that once was or even is still in him. It is also interesting to note how in the last stanza Douglas gives the impression that the soldier’s death was not his fault, but Death’s.