I'm interested to know everybody's favorite WW1 poem or who their favorite poet was.

Just about everyone has heard of Sassoon, Owen and McCrae and being from Australia, I have a soft spot for Leon Gellert, and they all deserve recognition for their wonderful work. But very often a single poem from a lesser known poet seems to strike a chord with a particular reader and I think it would be a good idea if we could share all these poems with each other.

I have to say that my favorite poet is Wilfrid Gibson. I find his poety stark, cold and fairly confronting in it's simplicity and I think this echoes the suffering of the ordinary footslogger.

Mad
Neck-deep in mud,
He mowed and raved -
He who had braved The field of blood -
And as a lad
Just out of school
Yelled - April Fool!
And laughed like mad.

The Bayonet
This bloody steel
Has killed a man.
I heard him squeal
As on I ran.

He watched me come
With wagging head.
I pressed it home
And he was dead.

Though clean and clear
I've wiped the steel,
I still can hear
That dying squeal

Back
They Ask me where I've Been.
And what I've done and seen.
But what can I reply?
Who knows it wasn't I,
But someone just like me,
Who went across the sea,
And with my head and hands,
Killed men in foreign lands.
Though I must bear the blame,
Because he bore my name.

How about "Boom Boom Boom Boom" By Private Baldrick!

Vance Palmer's "The Farmer Remembers the Somme"

Will they never fade or pass!
The mud,and the misty figures endlessly coming
In file through the foul morass,
And the grey flood-water lipping the reeds and grass,
And the steel wings drumming.

The hills are bright in the sun:
There's nothing changed or marred in the well-known places;
When work for the day is done
There's talk, and quiet laughter, and gleams of fun
On the old folks' faces.

I have returned to these:
The farm, and the kindly Bush, and the young calves lowing;
But all that my mind sees
Is a quaking bog in a mist --- stark, snapped trees,
And the dark Somme flowing.

All the best poetry is written by people who do not know the meaning of the word stanza.


little Jack Horner at hell fire corner
sat down a biscuit to chew,
He didn't care for the shells that flew there,
He knew what the biscuit could do.
There came a twelve incher, but jack didn't flinch,sir,
He grasped at his biscuit, and waited,
and then true and well, with biscuit met shell,
And the crump with a sigh denotated.

Anon

I like Alan Seeger's "I Have a Rendezvous with Death".

And most of Sasson's stuff. And Francis Ledwidge, an Irish poet who fought with the Inniskilling Fusiliers at 3rd Ypres and is buried in Artillery Wood Cemetery at Boezinge.

-- Viola

Viola

Mine is 'Man-at-arms' (Anon).
You will find the words on this previous thread.

Dave

http://1914-1918.org/forum/index.php?showt...&hl=man+at+arms

I did First World War poetry for my A Levels last year. It is really very good but i think my favourite is 'In Flanders Fields' by John Mcrae.

Favourite poet is Siegfried Sassoon. I love the satirical stuff like 'The General' and 'Base Details'

Anthony

Anthony - I like "The General" too - for those of you that don't know it, here it is

The General by Siegfried Sassoon - 1886-1967
"Good-morning; good-morning!" the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of ’em dead,
And we’re cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
"He’s a cheery old card," grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.

__________________________________________

Here's another of his - very to the point

Memorial Tablet
Squire nagged and bullied till I went to fight,
(Under Lord Derby's scheme). I died in hell -
(They called it Passchendaele). My wound was slight,
And I was hobbling back; and then a shell
Burst slick upon the duckboards: so I fell
Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light

At sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew,
He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare;
For, though low down upon the list, I'm there;
"In proud and glorious memory" ... that's my due.
Two bleeding years I fought in France, for Squire:
I suffered anguish that he's never guessed.
I came home on leave: and then went west...
What greater glory could a man desire?


____________________________________________

This one by Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895-1915 - killed by a sniper at the battle of Loos) is one of my favourite war poems

When you see millions of mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you’ll remember, for you need not so.

Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears.Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.

Say only this,‘They are dead’, then add
‘Many a better one has died before’.
Then scanning all the crowded mass,
Should you perceive one face that you loved
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all yours forever more.


Kate

G'day Tim
I don't have favourite poets, but every so often something seems to jump off the page. This one from anthology "Other Banners" by J T Laird.

Light Loss

"Our loss was light," the paper said,
"Compared with damage to the Hun":
She was a widow, and she read
One name upon the list of dead
--Her son ---her only son.

J. LE GAY BRERETON

dinkidi,


"They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning...

WE WILL REMEMBER THEM"

LEST WE FORGET

The most moving poem I've heard.
From "Ode to Rememberance"??? Laurence Binyon???

Steve Drew

Thanks everyone,

Many wonderful poems in a variety of styles. Personally, I think the simple, confronting style of the ordinary soldier has the most effect on me and manages to convey reality the best.

Dinkidi, I'd never read Vance Palmer's poem before but thought it was excellent. The standout for me however was 'Light Loss'. Short and simple but as soon as I read it I knew what you meant by jumping off the page.

Steve, the poem you are thinking of is Laurence Binyon's 'For The Fallen' and you are absolutely right - this has to be one of the most moving I've come across as well. (I can't believe I omitted it in my first post!!) So many people have only ever heard that small portion of it but it deserves the full treatment - so here it is;

For The Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.


Tim L.

It's 'For The Fallen' by Laurence Binyon.

It was set to music by Edward Elgar (see the thread: http://1914-1918.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=14775 ).

Although many people associate it, especially the famous fourth stanza, with the larger scale losses in the later part of the war, it was in fact written in September 1914.

Anthony


With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

... two people, almost opposite sides of the globe, think of almost exactly the same thing at the same time...

Tony
Well spotted.
Apparently at the 1st meeting of the liner Q E [1] and HMS Queen Elizabeth on the high seas, he civvie captain sent flew a Nelsonistic signal about the significance of the event in British Maritime History, The RN bloke flew "SNAP"
Pat

There are some excellent poets from Germany, Alfred Lichtenstein, August Stramm.
British poems were very much the same I find. They use old poetry methods to write about modern things. The Germans, however, did not feel that they could adapt the carnage into words with in the limitations of pre-war poetry and thus developed a highly minimalist approach to poetry. The same can be seen in the painting of the war, although the British painters such as Nevinson and the Nash brothers also adopt this style.
Whilst, yes, Sassoon and Owen and, and, and....are fine poets they struggle to find their own style.
I, of course, like to read Sassoon, Owen, Rosenburg, Thomas, Brooke and many others, and whilst I find their poetry moving I do not find it as stark. Lines, yes, but complete works, no.
At the end of the day though, poetry is an art form and is thus open to personal opinion. This is mine, make of it what you will.

All the best,

Tim

Tim - can you post some of the poems by Alfred Lichtenstein and August Stramm? I would be interested to read them.

Kate

Pals

Although I agree with all of you that have voted for 'For the fallen' - it always brings a lump to my throat, I would like to share another poem with you. It was written by a chap who I knew and served in WW2 and Korea including 4 years in Changi.

The Glory of War

At the sharp end of a war
You grovel in the dirt
For the evil whistling crack
Of bullets, ill directed, passing close
And you become one
With a muddy slit trench wall
When mortars cough their warning
Or incoming shells explode
With a spiteful fury.

You live with your body stench
Which is the stink of fear
While masticating meals from tins
With all your body crying
For the gentle peaceful sleep
You never seem to get.

Books all talk of bravery
And gallant deeds well done
But not the slightest mention
Of crawling through the dark to kill
Or walking into enemy fire
As you take their useless ground.

It often makes me wonder
If those patriotic imbeciles
Who wave the flag and chant
Their meaningless juvenile slogans
Have ever lived and feared
Dark forces set against them
Or felt the glowing warmth
Of close mates all around.


Please be aware that copyright exists for this work.

If this does not make you think - then I'm not sure what will.

With respects

Andy

Tim G. (very classy given name!!)

What do you think about the German authors writing about WW1 (novels or memoirs). Most of us have probably read Remarque but do you think they also adopted a different approach from their allied counterparts. I have a copy of 'The Way of Sacrifice' by Fritz von Unruh, but haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Tim L.

Joe Lee. 4th Black Watch.

The Mother.
'Mother o' mine ; O Mother o' mine '
My Mother rose from her grave last night,
And bent above my bed,
And laid a warm kiss on my lips,
A cool hand on my head;
And ' Come to me and come to me,
My bonny boy,' she said.

And when they found him at the dawn,
His brow with blood defiled,
And gently laid him in the earth,
They wondered why he smiled.


' Fighter Writer ' by Bob Burrows. published by Breedon Books.

Aye
Malcolm

I happened to take this photo last week of the grave of a man most of us admire. (My first photo post - hope its OK)

You're very right about poetry being open to personal opinion - it's a bit like classical music - some pieces you just love and can't understand why people don't appreciate them the same way!

Anyway, to give another slant to the poetry discussion, here's two more - this time from women poets.

The Veteran - May 1916
by Margaret Postgate Cole

We came upon him sitting in the sun
Blinded by war, and left. And past the fence
There came young soldiers from the Hand and Flower,
Asking advice of his experience.

And he said this, and that, and told them tales,
And all the nightmares of each empty head
Blew into air; then, hearing us beside,
"Poor chaps, how'd they know what it's like?" he said.

And we stood there, and watched him as he sat,
Turning his sockets where they went away,
Until it came to one of us to ask "And you're how old?"
"Nineteen, the third of May."

_____________________________

Lamplight by May Wedderburn Cannan


We planned to shake the world together, you and I.
Being young, and very wise;
Now in the light of the green shaded lamp
Almost I see your eyes
Light with the old gay laughter; you and I
Dreamed greatly of an Empire in those days,
Setting our feet upon laborious ways,
And all you asked of fame
Was crossed swords in the Army List;
My Dear, against your name.

We planned a great Empire together, you and I,
Bound only by the sea;
Now in the quiet of a chill Winter's night
Your voice comes hushed to me
Full of forgotten memories: you and I
Dreamed great dreams of our future in those days,
Setting our feet on undiscovered ways,
And all I asked of fame
A scarlet cross on my breast, my Dear,
For the swords by your name.

We shall never shake the world together, you and I,
For you gave your life away;
And I think my heart was broken by war,
Since on a summer day
You took the road we never spoke of; you and I
Dreamed greatly of an Empire in those days;
You set your feet upon the Western ways
And have no need of fame -
There's a scarlet cross on my breast, my Dear,
And a torn cross with your name.
_______________________

Kate

Total bias but I must chip in with a poem from Wilfred Gibson, born in Hexham 1878, died 1962



BACK

They ask me where I've been,
and what I've done and seen.
but what can I reply
who know it wasn't I,
but someone just like me,
who went across the sea
and with my head and hands
killed men in foreign lands...
though I must bear the blame,
because he bore my name

However his greatest work in the eyes of most fellow Northumbrians has to be:

Heather land and bent land
Black land and white
God bring me to Northumberland
The land of my delight

Land of singing waters
And words from off the sea
God bring me to Northumberland
The land where I would be

Heather land and bent land
And valley rich with corn
God bring me to Northumberland
The land where I was born.

Gibson was a private unlike most war poets, I understand he served towards the end of the war but with which regiment and where?

Geez! That must be the world record! Mother & Son Both Well?

I have often read of, but never sighted, the special trench editions of "Ginger Mick"
by C J Dennis. Doesn't quite fit the gung - ho Aussie image. All them chappies sitting around reading poetry!
The censors would not allow the "Battle of the Wazzir" to be included in the wartime editions, but it is now freely available. The poems sold 700,000 copies before 1920. [Probably only beaten by sales of The (other) Bible].
He shore talks funny though!
ooRoo
Pat

Hi Tim L.

I wrote my dissertation last year on German literature of the Great War so I have, as a result, read a fair number of German WW1 related novels/memoirs.
I found as a whole the German novel of the time is the opposite to the poetry. It does not really break new ground in writing styles. There are some for the war, i.e. Jünger's 'The Storm of Steel', and some are against, i.e. Remarque's 'All Quiet...'. As whole though they are a very well structured, as you would expect, approach to relating an experience. They do, of course, 'break the mould' in regards to the way war had been viewed within their generation and the pre-war generation, but the writing style is similar to German writing pre-war.
British writing, however, is another story (no pun intended!). Henry Williamson's 'Patriot's Progress' is a masterpiece of minimalistic sentences. It deals with the same feelings as the German novels but takes on the same type of form as the German poetry. Manning's 'The Middle Parts of Forune' is, and will probably remain, for me, thebest novel to come out of the war. Though not as overtly anti-war as Remarque, or as pro-war as Jünger, not as stylistic as Williamson, it captures the reader and draws them into the world in which the soldiers lived. Well worth a read if you get a chance.
Obviously it is quite hard to go into detail in such a short time as I am frantically rattling this off before I have to give my next lesson. Hope it helps though.


Kate,

Yes, I can, but it will be on Monday. I only have access to the net a work at the moment and I have just read your post.


All the best,

Tim G.

Hello Kate

Without wishing to intrude in a private dialogue, I'd like to suggest The Lost Voices of Word War One, An International Anthology of Writers, Poets and Playwrights, by Tim Cross. (Bloomsbury) ISBN 0-7475-0276-5 I'm not sure if it's still in print. My copy is ancient.

It includes pieces by the authors mentioned as well as 60 or so more, with accompanying translations into English and a helpful commentary. The selection includes drama and prose as well as poetry. As the title suggests, the emphasis is on those who died.

I can't comment on the quality of the selection, as my subject is English and not European literature, but it seems fine to me!

Stramm's work has the same effect on me as seeing the apocalyptic woodcuts of Emil Nolde or the chalk drawings of Otto Dix: seeing an independent, anguished mind's interpretation of the savagery and elemental chaos around him. I'm not sure about quoting - are there copyright issues in quoting the translation? So I'll just add a short one as a sort of flavour:

Wunde

Die Erde blutet unterm Helmkopf
Sterne fallen
Der Weltraum tastet
Schauder brausen
Wirbeln
Einsamkeiten
Nebel
Weinen
Ferne
Deinen Blick.




Gwyn

Hi Gwen

Certainly isn't a private conversation! Thanks for your book recommendation - I've just added it to my amazon shopping basket (which is rather large and over flowing at the moment <sigh>)

I googled for Stramm's Wunde and came up with a translation - very stark and very different to anything I've read before.

Kate

Well ... Tim knows far more about it than I do, but he said he hadn't got his copies to hand. I wasn't being pointed!

I have an Amazon shopping trolley...

Gwyn (with a y )

Ooops - sorry - put it down to one-handed typing - baby asleep in other arm!

Kate

I'd like to nominate Leslie Coulson. Justifiably famous for the shockingly angry "Who Made the Law" but considerable merit in much of his work.

EBay recently yielded a copy of his posthumous anthology "From an Outpost " and this now resides on my bookshelf next to the register for Grove Town Cemetery where he is buried.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I feel sure that my choice is not PC, that apparently even soldiers weren't keen on this writing; however, as has been said, poetry appreciation is subjective, so I put forward 'Rhymes of a Red Cross Man' by Robert Service.

Herte's one you can actually go to the spot and walk it.

BEAUCOURT REVISITED

I wondered up to Beaucourt, I took the river track
And saw the lines we lived in before the bosche went back
But peace was now in pottage, the front was far ahead
The front had journied eastward, and only left the dead.

And I thought, how long we lay there, and watched across the wire
While the guns roared round the valley, and set the skies afire,
But now there are homes in Hamel, and tents in the vale of hell
And a camp at suicide corner, where half a regiment fell.

The new troops follow after, and tread the land we won
To them tis so much hillside re wrested from the hun
We only walk with reverence this sullen mile of mud
The shell holes hold our history and half of them our blood.

Here at the head of Peche St twas death to show your face
To me it seemed like magic to linger in this place
For me how many spirits hung around the Kentish caves
But the new man see no spirits, they only see the graves.

I found the half dug ditchs we fashioned for the fight
We lost a score of men there, young James was killed that night
I saw the star shells starting I heard the bullets hail
But the new trops passed unheeding, they never heard the tale.

I crossed the blood red ribbon that once was no mans land
I saw the misty daybreak the creeping minute hand
And there the lads went over and there was Harmsworth shot
And here was William lying but the new men knew them not.

And I said there is still the river and still the stiff stark trees
To treasure here our story, but there are only these
But under the white wood crosses, the dead men answer low
The new men knew not Beaucourt, but we are here, we know.

A P Herbert

PS The Line "There was Harmsworth shot" refers to Lt the Honerable Vere Harmsworth son of Lord Rothermere. He's buried in The Ancre Britsh Cemertery just outside Boaucourt.

Ever since this thread started, it has made me wonder about a poem that is stuck in my head. I do not remember where I read it and most importantly I can not remember who wrote it if anybody could put a poets name to this I would be forever greatefull.


Every bullet has its billet
Some bullets more than one
For you sometimes kill a mother
When you kill a mothers son


Brum

La Bassee road poeme: "LA BASSEE ROAD
(Cuinchy, 1915.)
YOU'LL see from the La Bassée Road, on any
summer's day,
The children herding nanny-goats, the women
making hay.
You'll see the soldiers, khaki clad, in column
and platoon,
Come swinging up La Bassée Road from billets
in Bethune.
There's hay to save and corn to cut, but harder
work by far
Awaits the soldier boys who reap the harvest
fields of war.
You'll see them swinging up the road where
women work at hay,
The straight long road, -- La Bassée Road, -- on
any summer day.
The night-breeze sweeps La Bassée Road, the
night-dews wet the hay,
The boys are coming back again, a straggling
crowd are they.
The column's lines are broken, there are gaps
in the platoon,
They'll not need many billets, now, for soldiers
in Bethune,
For many boys, good lusty boys, who marched
away so fine,
Have now got little homes of clay beside the
firing line.
Good luck to them, God speed to them, the
boys who march away,
A-singing up La Bassée road each sunny é summer day. é

A LAMENT

sorry Kate, I completely forgot about the poems, I promise I'll put them up tomorrow. The book recommened is absolutely excellent, it has the poems in original and translation.

All the best,

Tim

Tim G.

I looked up some of August Stramm's works on the net. Had to find translations as I'm no linguist and I hope they do the original justice. Very thought provoking and certainly different to anything I've seen. Must admit though, you've got me hooked on it. It seems that so much can be said in only a few simple words.

My favorite so far would be:

ANGRIFF

Tücher
Winken
Flattern
Knattern.
Winde klatschen.
Dein Lachen weht.
Greifen Fassen
Balgen Zwingen
Kuss
Umfangen
Sinken
Nichts.

or translated to English:

ATTACK

Scarves
Wave
Flutter
Chatter
Winds clatter.
Your laughter blows
Grasp hold
Scuffle force
Kiss
Surrounded
Sink down
Nothingness.


Tim L.

Hello Gwyn

Amazon delivered my copy of this today (had to wait a few weeks!). Thanks for the recommendation - an excellent book.

Kate

Hi All,

A family effort.




Remember


The bloody fields,
The barbed wire,
The guns blazing,
The men on fire.

The skies are greying,
The air so black.
The sounds are constant,
Rat a tat tat.

Crouching low,
Avoiding a shot.
Frozen solid,
To the spot.

Man steps up
And leads the way.
A blazing inferno,
Ends his day.

Comrades gather,
So few to say.
What life was given,
And lost this day.

In bloody fields
So far away.

Hi all,
Alan Seeger has been mentioned in this thread before most often for his famous poem "I have a rendezvous with death". I haven't seen anyone refer to his volume of Letters and Diary which can be purchased alongside "Poems by Alan Seeger" as "Alan Seeger, The COmplete Works" by Amanda harlech (Ed.)
ISBN 3-88243-751-0, Edition, Paris.

Alan Seeger was an American who enlisted in the Foreign Legion of France in 1914. He died on 3rd July 1916 in the fight for Belloy-en-Santerre.

Reading the letters to his mother and the diary entries provide the context for his beautiful poems.
I strongly recommend the complete works.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/3...4269947-7490003

Robbie

Brum

Every bullet has its billet
Many bullets more than one
God! perhaps I killed a mother
When I killed a mother's son.

Joseph Lee (1875-1949)

A Soldier's Grave

Then in the lull of midnight, gentle arms
Lifted him slowly down the slopes of death
Lest he should hear again the mad alarms
Of battle, dying moans, and painful breath.

And where the earth was soft for flowers we made
A grave for him that he might better rest.
So, Spring shall come and leave it seet arrayed,
And there the lark shall turn her dewy nest

Francis Ledwidge

But Alan Seeger's Rendez-Vous is a close second.

Erwin

Brum

Well, outside of knowing that he wrote that poem, I had never heard of Lee. I have just done a little "googling" and found out something about him. See here:

http://www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk/news/200...040601lee.shtml

COMMON FORM

If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.


Rudyard Kipling

One I find particularly poignant:

INSPECTION

'You! What d'you mean by this?' I rapped.
'You dare come on parade like this?'
'Please, sir, it's -' ''Old yer mouth,' the sergeant snapped.
'I takes 'is name, sir?' - 'Please, and then dismiss.'
Some days 'confined to camp' he got,
For being 'dirty on parade'.
He told me, afterwards, the damned spot
Was blood, his own. 'Well, blood is dirt,' I said.
'Blood's dirt,' he laughed, looking away
Far off to where his wound had bled
And almost merged for ever into clay.
'The world is washing out its stains,' he said.
'It doesn't like our cheeks so red:
Young blood's its great objection.
But when we're duly white-washed, being dead,
The race will bear Field-Marshal God's inspection.'

Wilfred Owen

Brigantian,

I quite agree with your choice, truly a masterpiece.

I hadn't read that Wilfred Owen poem before. Magnificent.

Tim L.

How about this one:

TRENCH POETS

I knew a man, he was my chum,
but he grew blacker every day,
and would not brush the flies away,
nor blanch however fierce the hum
of passing shells; I used to read,
to rouse him, random things from Donne--

Like "Get with child a mandrake-root."
But you can tell he was far gone,
For he lay gaping, mackerel-eyed,
and stiff, and senseless as a post
Even when that old poet cried
"I long to talk with some old lover's ghost.

I tried the Elegies one day,
but he, because he heard me say:
"What needst thou have more covering than a man?"
Grinned nastily, and so I knew
The worms had got his brains at last.
There was one thing that I might do
to starve the worms; I racked my head
for healthy things and quoted Maud.
His grin got worse and I could see
He sneered at passion's purity.
He stank so badly, though we were great chums
I had to leave him; then rats ate his thumbs.


Edgell Rickword

I would like to nominate Charles Sorley's "All The Hills And Vales Along". Sorley was killed at the age of just 20 at Loos in 1915. His name is inscribed on the Loos Memorial. Had he lived, I feel his work could have developed to rank alongside Sassoon and Owen.

It is quite a long poem, so I will just quote the first and last verses.

All the hills and vales along,
Earth is bursting into song,
And the singers are the chaps,
Who are going to die perhaps.
O sing, marching men,
Till the valleys ring again.
Give your gladness to earth's keeping,
So be glad when you are sleeping.


On, marching men, on
To the gates of death with song,
Sow your gladness for earth's reaping,
So you may be glad, though sleeping,
Strew your gladness on earth's bed,
So be merry, so be dead.

The Ulsterman in me is drawn to Blunden's poem:

The Ancre at Hamel: Afterwards

Where tongues were loud and hearts were light
I heard the Ancre flow;
Waking oft at the mid of night
I heard the Ancre flow.

I heard it crying, that sad rill,
Below the painful ridge
By the burnt unraftered mill
And the relic of a bridge.
And could this sighing river seem
To call me far away,
And its pale word dismiss as dream
The voices of to-day?
The voices in the bright room chilled
And that mourned on alone;
The silence of the full moon filled
With that brook's troubling tone.

The struggling Ancre had no part
In these new hours of mine,
And yet its stream ran through my heart;
I heard it grieve and pine,
As if its rainy tortured blood
Had swirled into my own,
When by its battered bank I stood
And shared its wounded moan.

Edmund Blunden

Regards
Carninyj

Though it not quite on the same literary level and though I can't remember where I first saw it, I love this one:

The Road to La Bassée

I went across to France again, and walked about the line,
The trenches have been all filled in - the country's looking fine.
The folks gave me a welcome, and lots to eat and drink,
Saying, 'Allo, Tommee, back again? 'Ow do you do? In ze pink?'
And then I walked about again, and mooched about the line;
You'd never think there'd been a war, the country's looking fine.
But the one thing that amazed me, most shocked me, I should say
- There's buses running now from Bethune to La Bassée!

I sat at Shrapnel Corner and I tried to take it in,
It all seemed much too quiet, I missed the war-time din.
I felt inclined to bob down quick - Jerry sniper in that trench!
A minnie coming over! God, what a hellish stench!
Then I pulled myself together, and walked on to La Folette -
And the cows were calmly grazing on the front line parapet.
And the kids were playing marbles by the old Estaminet -
Fancy kiddies playing marbles on the road to La Bassée!

You'd never think there'd been a war, the country's looking fine -
I had a job in places picking out the old front line.
You'd never think there'd been a war - ah, yet you would, I know,
You can't forget those rows of headstones every mile or so.
But down by Tunnel Trench I saw a sight that made me start,
For there, at Tourbieres crossroads - a gaudy ice-cream cart!
It was hot, and I was dusty, but somehow I couldn't stay -
Ices didn't seem quite decent on the road to La Bassée.

Some of the sights seemed more than strange as I kept marching on.
The Somme's a blooming garden, and there are roses in Peronne.
The sight of dear old Arras almost made me give three cheers;
And there's kiddies now in Plugstreet, and mamselles in Armentiers.
But nothing that I saw out there so seemed to beat the band
As those buses running smoothly over what was No Man's Land.
You'd just as soon expect them from the Bank to Mandalay
As to see those buses running from Bethune to La Bassée.

Then I got into a bus myself, and rode for all the way,
Yes, I rode inside a bus from Bethune to La Bassée.
Through Beuvry and through Annequin, and then by Cambrin Tower -
The journey used to take four years, but now it's half an hour.
Four years to half an hour - the best speedup I've met.
Four years? Aye, longer still for some - they haven't got there yet.
Then up came the conductor chap, 'Vos billets s'il vous plait.'
Fancy asking for your tickets on the road to La Bassée.

And I wondered what they'd think of it - those mates of mine who died -
They never got to La Bassée, though God knows how they tried.
I thought back to the moments when their number came around,
And now those buses rattling over sacred, holy ground,
Yes, I wondered what they'd think of it, those mates of mine who died.
Of those buses rattling over the old pave close beside.
'Carry on! That's why we died!' I could almost hear them say,
To keep those buses always running from Bethune to La Bassée!'

Sixteen years after the Great War, in 1934, Bernard Newman and Harold Arpthorp, two British veterans, together wrote 'The Road to La Bassée'.

Regards
Carninyj

I really enjoyed that, Caninyj - the second verse has something about it...
Marina