NO MEN ARE FOREIGN

 

 

NO  MEN ARE FOREIGN

‘‘No Men Are Foreign’’ is a most famous poem written by the prolific English poet, translator and travel writer James Harold Kirkup.  He was  born in England on 23 April 1918 and passed away at Andorra on 10 May 2009.

Kirkup is reckoned as an author of  over 45 books in various literary genres. English poet Stevie Smith (1902-1971) described him as “a poet in the English tradition, original without being freakish , contemporary without being fraudulent. “

Kirkup’s books include novels, plays, autobiographies, anthologies of poems  -----all of which he wrote under several pen-names such as James Falconer, Andrew James, Felix Liston, Edwards Raeburn and many others.

              “No Men Are Foreign” is a poem on universal brotherhood. Its message deserves to be conveyed to every child and every adult in the whole world.  It is a poem which people of all religions must read with an understanding heart.  Political leaders, social reformers and heads of defence forces ought to imbibe from its powerful lines  the spirit of unity of mankind and cherish the dream of a world without borders. 

To enjoy the power and beauty of  this poem is easy but to comprehend its core values and to practically work on  them is quite difficult.    

            The poem reads as follows:

REMEMBER no men are strange no countries foreign.

Beneath all uniforms, a single body breathes

Like ours ; the land of our brothers walk upon

Is earth like this, in which we all shall lie.

 

They, too, are aware of sun and air and water,

Are fed by peaceful harvests, by war’s log winter starv’d.

 

Their hands are ours, and in their lines we read

A labour not different from our own.  

 

sleep and strength that can be won by love

Remember, they have eyes like ours that wake

Or sleep, and strength that can be won

By love. In every land is common life

That all can recognize and understand.

 

Let us remember, whenever e ae told

To hat our brothers, it is ourselves

That we shall dispossess, betray, condemn.

Remember, we who take arms against each other.

 

It is the human earth that we defile,

Our hells of fire and dust outrage the innocence

Of air , that is everywhere our own.

Remember, no men are foreign, and no countries strange.

 

            Read again and again: (a) Their hands are ours, and in their lines we read a labour not different from others. (b) Remember, they have eyes like ours that wake or sleep, and strength that can be won by love. In every land is common life that all can recognize and understand. (c) and most of all repeat day after day this contemporarily relevant stanza:

 

It is the human earth we defile,

Our hells of fire  and dust outrage the innocence

Of air, that is everywhere our own.

Remember, no men are foreign, and no countries strange.           

 

In my humble view, this is one of the greatest and loveliest poems on universal brotherhood.

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30th December 2021                             G.R. Kanwal