To Those Who’ve Fail’d

TO those who’ve fail’d, in aspiration vast,
To unnam’d soldiers fallen in front on the lead,
To calm, devoted engineers – to over-ardent travelers – to pilots on
their ships,
To many a lofty song and picture without recognition – I’d rear
laurel-cover’d monument,
High, high above the rest – To all cut off before their time,
Possess’d by some strange spirit of fire,
Quench’d by an early death.

The Southerners

Civil War

Unnamed soldiers who got shot

The people who profited from the war and reconstruction

No one will know what really happened here

But I’m going to tell them

Everyone who thinks they’re all that and a bag of potato chips

Everyone who died in the war

They were all in a tizzy over the awesome that they were going to do

But then they didn’t

Simplified Version:

People think they know, but they have no idea. Kicking ass might seem like a good idea, until it’s your ass thats kicked. Truth.

The Bravest Soldiers

BRAVE, brave were the soldiers (high named to-day) who lived through
the fight;
But the bravest press’d to the front and fell, unnamed, unknown.

Living posers

Dead O.G.s

Simplified Version:

People telling stories today about how brave they were back then may have just chilled in the back like wussies.

The real hard core guys died on the front lines.

A Font of Type

This latent mine – these unlaunch’d voices – passionate powers,

Wrath, argument, or praise, or comic leer, or prayer devout,

(Not nonpareil, brevier, bourgeois, long primer merely,)

These ocean waves arousable to fury and to death,

Or sooth’d ease and sheeny sun and sleep,

Within the pallid slivers slumbering.

Typeface decision is very important in determining the tone of your message

For instance, loud and impressive Gotham Black, classy Baskerville Italic, overused, but still very nice Trajan, God-forsaken Comic Sans, and its equally agitating side-kick, Papyrus

But all of these typefaces have emotion, unlike Times New Roman, Regular, Size 12, Double Spaced. (Actually he mentions a size 8 and nothing about double spacing, but this is a modern reference to what he’s talking about.)

Ink being printed on a big printing press and drying…

…On white paper

Simplified Version: If you want to make your next paper look really nice, give some thought into the font. I personally recommend Garamond, or Baskerville if you have it.

PAUMANOK

Sea-beauty! stretch’d and basking!