利物浦“美惠三女神”捍卫英国的荣耀

前途出国外联部总监、美国哈佛大学人类发展与心理学专业硕士 本文作者 萧明颢

Wrapping up the first week of our three-week journey across the UK, the history and influence of the grandeur of the Great Empire is apparent in every city, at every turn. In our recent stop in Liverpool, we were taken in by the modernity along the Waterfront of the Museum of Liverpool next to the city’s historic Pier Head trio landmark “The Three Graces”.

Liverpool Pier Head’s “The Three Graces” (left to right: Royal Liver Building, Cunard Building, Port of Liverpool Building). Photo by Chenggang Zhou.

Yet, it was the visit to the Liverpool Town Hall which reminded me that our lives, and in many respects, the comforts and freedom we enjoy would not have been possible without the millions who had fought and sacrificed their own lives. The history of the United Kingdom, its four member countries, and Commonwealth territories have been involved in a game of war and peace as far as history can record - from the Hundred Years’ War crusades to the modern day war on terrorism offensives.

During a tour of the Georgian style building built in the mid-18th century, one room was dedicated to 13,000 soldiers from Liverpool who had fought valiantly and bravely during the World War One (1914-1918), also known as “The Great War”. With this past July commemorating the beginning of the War, the room was a quiet and somber memorial and reminder that freedom and personal rights are not easily won – that the clashing of political and religious ideologies, the tension between war and peace continues on today.

Left: Liverpool Town Hall exterior; Right: Liverpool Town Hall Hall of Remembrance which memorializes names of the 13,000 soldiers from Liverpool who fought and died in the Great War (World War One, 1914-1918)

While many may debate and denounce the use of war and military force, let us not forget those who voluntarily or involuntarily carried out the actions decided by the powers that be.

In closing, I would like to share the following poem, “The Soldier” (taken from 1914 poem series) written in 1914 by pre-war poet, Rupert Brooke, at the beginning of World War One.

The Soldier

Rupert Brooke (1887 – 1915)

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there's some corner of a foreign field

That is forever England. There shall be

In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;

A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,

Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam;

A body of England's, breathing English air,

Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,

A pulse in the eternal mind, no less

Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;

Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;

And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,

In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.