Vergissmeinnicht

Vergissminnicht
-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 mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.




This poem intrigues me for many reasons. I first noticed the rhyming in the poem that switches between AABB, ABAB, and ABBA. I personally like using ABBA so that I can start singing Dancing Queen in my head. Anyways, what grips me about this poem is the imagery of the soldier lying there. It had been weeks since he was killed and yet his body still remains. I wonder if his fellow soldiers are also around him or if it is only the one soldier. 


Vergissmeinnicht loosely translates to forget me not. Of course we can see the connection between the soldier and the lover. The woman at home will not forget her dead lover. But what makes me curious is how vergissmeinnicht could be used to describe the narrator and the soldier. The narrator has returned again to the place the soldier rests and he says he sees the picture again. The narrator is not able to forget this scene and he describes how moving it is here in this poem. 


Since the picture has German words on it, I am assuming that the soldier was German and that this was during either the first or second World War. And if that is the case, the narrator is most likely American or English which would make the narrator see the soldier as his enemy. Especially because the narrator says, "as we came on that day, he hit my tank with one like the entry of a demon," and refers to the soldier as the "killer." So if this is the case, why does the soldiers body effect the narrator in such a way to reflect on the sight instead of just passing by? Is it that love conquers even the toughest tests? Or that the power of love is stronger than the love of power?