LE CHRISTIANISME
Wilfred Owen

So the church Christ was hit and buried
Under its rubbish and its rubble.
In cellars, packed-up saints lie serried,
Well out of hearing of our trouble.

One Virgin still immaculate
Smiles on for war to flatter her.
She's halo'd with an old tin hat,
But a piece of hell will batter her.

There isn,t much ww1 poetry i don,t like but my 2 favourite poems and verses are :

AFTERMATH by Siegfried Sassoon.
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.

THE SOLDIER by Rupert Brooke.
If i should die think only this of me , that theres some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.

As kids my father on Sundays when there was nothing doing, would have us kids recite different poetry by the war poets, those recitations undoubtedly helped to give my youngest brother and i, the fascination with the war and its poets which now dominates our lives. Cheers Ian.

This is possibly my favourite poem of all time. Not a huge poetry fan in general but this one is, I think, brilliant.

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Issac, the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, the fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there.
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not a hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
But the old man would not do so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Here's one from the north east of Scotland about a girl left behind to wait:

WHEN WILL THE WAR BE BY?
Charles Murray

This year, neist year, sometime, never,
A lanely lass, bringing hame the kye,
And laich, laich, she is coontin' ever
This year, neist year, sometime, never,
When will the war be by?

Weel, wounded, missing,deid,
Is there nae news o' oor lads ava?
Are they hale and fere that are hine awa? A lass raxed oot for the list to read
Weel, wounded, missing, deid;
And the war was by for twa.

Nesit - next
kye - cattle
laich - wearily (I think!)
coontin' - counting
by - over
weel - well
ava - at all
raxed - reached
deid - dead
hale - well

Here's one written in 1915 by a 15-year-old schoolboy - Edwin Horace Wright, my grandfather, and published in about 1918 (by Stockwell's of Ludgate Hill) in a slim anthology of his childhood works entitled Grave and Gay (Poems.).

MY OWN V.C.
by Edwin H. Wright

"My boy, God bless you!" mother said,
"May He go whereso'er you tread;
When far from sight, I'll think of thee,
You'll be my prize, my own V.C."

"Good-bye, God bless you! mother dear,
I'll think of you when far from here."
For my sake mother shed a tear:
"With God beside, lad, never fear."

That parting mem'ry's in my breast
When I'm at wake or when at rest;
Fighting for right, across the sea,
I think of her as my V.C.

When in the trenches far away,
Standing in water night and day,
I make my mind to try and be
Worthy to be mother's V.C.

Fighting for Britain, noble, brave;
Fighting, her freedom for e'er to save;
Fighting for Britain, glorious, free;
Fighting for mother, the best V.C.

Poetry set to music....Eric Bogle's 'No Man's Land' uses the familiar Great War themes in it's verses and I like it as a song. Lyrically, I like Stephen L. Suffet's 'reply' as an attempt to portray soldiers fighting for what they felt was right.

Bogle's 'No Man's Land' http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/noman.html

Suffet's reply http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/wilreply.html

Hannes Wader's German version http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/esist.html
(can anyone give us a decent translation - I don't think Babelfish will do the job here!!!)

Either:
In Memoriam

by Ewart Alan Mackintosh (killed in action 21 November 1917 aged 24)

(Private D Sutherland killed in action in the German trenches, 16 May 1916, and the others who died.)

So you were David's father,
And he was your only son,
And the new-cut peats are rotting
And the work is left undone,
Because of an old man weeping,
Just an old man in pain,
For David, his son David,
That will not come again.

Oh, the letters he wrote you,
And I can see them still,
Not a word of the fighting,
But just the sheep on the hill
And how you should get the crops in
Ere the year get stormier,
And the Bosches have got his body,
And I was his officer.

You were only David's father,
But I had fifty sons
When we went up in the evening
Under the arch of the guns,
And we came back at twilight -
O God! I heard them call
To me for help and pity
That could not help at all.

Oh, never will I forget you,
My men that trusted me,
More my sons than your fathers',
For they could only see
The little helpless babies
And the young men in their pride.
They could not see you dying,
And hold you while you died.

Happy and young and gallant,
They saw their first-born go,
But not the strong limbs broken
And the beautiful men brought low,
The piteous writhing bodies,
They screamed 'Don't leave me, sir',
For they were only your fathers
But I was your officer.

or

Sonnet to my Friend

WITH AN IDENTITY DISC
If ever I had dreamed of my dead name
High in the heart of London, unsurpassed
By Time for ever, and the Fugitive, Fame,
There seeking a long sanctuary at last, -

Or if I onetime hoped to hide its shame,
- Shame of success, and sorrow of defeats, -
Under those holy cypresses, the same
That shade always the quiet place of Keats,

Now rather thank I God there is no risk
Of gravers scoring it with florid screed.
Let my inscription be this soldier's disc.
Wear it, sweet friend. Inscribe no date nor deed.
But may thy heart-beat kiss it, night and day,
Until the name grow blurred and fade away.

Phillip Edward Thomas born in London 3rd March 1878 - died 9th April 1917, on duty at an Observation Post, by a shell blast during the first hours of the "Arras offensive".

I like his motivation, for if you must fight, then there is no better reason than love of one's country and values.


"This is no case of petty right and wrong"

This is no case of petty right and wrong
That politicians or philosophers
Can judge. I hate not Germans, nor grow hot
With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers.
Beside my hate for one fat patriot
My hatred of the Kaiser is love true:-
A kind of god he is, banging a gong.
But I have not to choose between the two,
Or between justice and injustice. Dinned
With war and argument I read no more
Than in the storm smoking along the wind
Athwart the wood. Two witches' cauldrons roar.
From one the weather shall rise clear and gay;
Out of the other an England beautiful
And like her mother that died yesterday.
Little I know or care if, being dull,
I shall miss something that historians
Can rake out of the ashes when perchance
The phoenix broods serene above their ken.
But with the best and meanest Englishmen
I am one in crying, God save England, lest
We lose what never slaves and cattle blessed.
The ages made her that made us from the dust:
She is all we know and live by, and we trust
She is good and must endure, loving her so:
And as we love ourselves we hate her foe.


Edward Thomas

http://www.edwardthomas.co.uk/

My two are:

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?

By Siegfried Sassoon

Futility

Move him into the sun —
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds —
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, — still warm, — too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
— O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

By Wilfred Owen

Steve

A poem written by an unknown soldier after the evacuation of Gallipoli:

Not only muffled is our tread
To cheat the foe,
We fear to rouse our honoured dead
To hear us go.
Sleep sound, old friends - the keenest smart
Which, more than failure, wounds the heart,
Is thus to leave you - thus to part.

How reminiscent of your wonderful offering is this Gallipoli poem,
THE LAST TO LEAVE

The guns were silent, and the silent hills
Had bowed their grasses to a gentle breeze.
I gazed upon the vales and on the rills,
And whispered, ‘What of these?’ and, ‘What of these?
These long-forgotten dead with sunken graves,
Some crossless, with unwritten memories;
Their only mourners are the moaning waves;
Their only minstrels are the singing trees.’
And thus I mused and sorrowed wistfully.

I watched the place where they had scaled the height,
That height whereon they bled so bitterly
Throughout each day and through each blistered night.
I sat there long, and listened – all things listened too.
I heard the epics of a thousand trees;
A thousand waves I heard, and then I knew
The waves were very old, the trees were wise:
The dead would be remembered evermore –
The valiant dead that gazed upon the skies,
And slept in great battalions by the shore.

.

Marina,
Re your last poem, in my Bibliography of Gallipoli Poetry (available on the site of 'The Gallipolian' or from me) I have this reference to it -

Guppy CQM Sgt. A L 14th. Bn. AIF – (The Broken Years – Australian Soldiers in the Great War. B Gammage Page 110)
Untitled – Not Only Muffled is our Tread…

Hi, Bob - Thanks for that. I found it on the net ascribed to 'unknown soldier'. Good to know he has a name.
Who wrote 'The Last To Leave'?
Marina

Marina,
Australia's finest war-poet, Leon Gellert,
Bob

We've got something of his early on in the thread if you haven't seen it, Bob.
Marina

Hello Everyone

I am looking for a short, unfinished poem from a dying soldier to his wife.

This actual poem was found in his personal Bible and his poem is about the snow in the field, how he is feeling no pain and not to worry about him. The poem is about 3-4 stanzas long and is unfinished as the soldier died before he finished it. It may be associated with Vimy but I cannot be definite about this.

Does this poem sound familiar to anyone?


Regards
Borden Battery

This one may already be posted - but I read it for the first time this morning - and it really hit me (especially since I was eating breakfast at the time!!)

Half-Hours at Helles. by A.P. Herbert

This is the Fourth of June.
Think not I never dream
The noise of that infernal noon,
The stretchers' endless stream,
The tales of triumph won,
The night that found them lies,
The wounded wailing in the sun,
The dead, the dust, the flies.

The flies! oh God, the flies
That soiled the sacred dead.
To see them swarm from dead man's eyes
And share the soldiers' bread!
Nor think I now forget
The filth and stench of war,
The corpses on the parapet,
The maggots in the floor.

Strong stuff, Frev.
Marina

Does anyone know the following poem? I've tried googling to no avail. Its first line is, of course, a quote from John McCrae's most famous one. I copied this into a school exercise book quite a number of years ago, but didn't write who the author was! (If I ever knew it). I found it again today. Also, does anyone know why "Always a little further" is quotated? I'm guessing it belongs to another poem, but I can't think which.

Peace With Honour

"In Flanders Fields the poppies blow."
As in a dream, far visioned, long ago,
The scarlet yield is etched, and wedgewood skies
Darken the dew-wet dusk, for there Peace lies:
Long, long ago they swept, a living tide,
Across the flower-starred fields, young, eager-eyed -
And knew not that their children's feet would tread
The poppy fields, dyed a brighter red.

For you the went, for me - for yours and mine,
For you they go - drink deep the bitter wine
their finer faith has bought, for these are they
who see the light beyond our little day:
Drink deep, for these are they whose needs must go
"Always a little further" - the poppies blow
through foreign fields, and on the Seven Seas
the crisom fleet, born on a phantom breeze,
reflect the glory of the battling sky.

Peace was their dreaming - Peace our urgent cry -
For this we sacrifice all we have held most dear:
Yet, in the accounting, grant mercy to attain
Peace with Honour, lest victory be vain!

Allie

My favourite: Siegfried Sassoon

"At Daybreak"

...

Spirit of purity, he stands
As once he lived in charm and grace:
I may not hold him with my hands,
Nor bid him to heal my sorrow;
Only his fair, unshadowed face
Abides with me until to-morrow.

And here's another Sassoon to go with yours, CF:

To Any Dead Officer


Well, how are things in Heaven? I wish you’d say,
Because I’d like to know that you’re all right.
Tell me, have you found everlasting day,
Or been sucked in by everlasting night?
For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain;
I hear you make some cheery old remark—
I can rebuild you in my brain,
Though you’ve gone out patrolling in the dark.

You hated tours of trenches; you were proud
Of nothing more than having good years to spend;
Longed to get home and join the careless crowd
Of chaps who work in peace with Time for friend.
That’s all washed out now. You’re beyond the wire:
No earthly chance can send you crawling back;
You’ve finished with machine-gun fire—
Knocked over in a hopeless dud-attack.

Somehow I always thought you’d get done in,
Because you were so desperate keen to live:
You were all out to try and save your skin,
Well knowing how much the world had got to give.
You joked at shells and talked the usual ‘shop,’
Stuck to your dirty job and did it fine:
With ‘Jesus Christ! when will it stop?
Three years ... It’s hell unless we break their line.’

So when they told me you’d been left for dead
I wouldn’t believe them, feeling it must be true.
Next week the bloody Roll of Honour said
‘Wounded and missing’—(That’s the thing to do
When lads are left in shell-holes dying slow,
With nothing but blank sky and wounds that ache,
Moaning for water till they know
It’s night, and then it’s not worth while to wake!)

. . . .
Good-bye, old lad! Remember me to God,
And tell Him that our Politicians swear
They won’t give in till Prussian Rule’s been trod
Under the Heel of England ... Are you there?...
Yes ... and the War won’t end for at least two years;
But we’ve got stacks of men ... I’m blind with tears,
Staring into the dark. Cheerio!
I wish they’d killed you in a decent show.

Siegfried Sassoon

You've put me in the mood, Ceasefire. here's another I've always liked:

Remorse


Lost in the swamp and welter of the pit,
He flounders off the duck-boards; only he knows
Each flash and spouting crash,--each instant lit
When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes
Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders,
"Could anything be worse than this?"--he wonders,
Remembering how he saw those Germans run,
Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees:
Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was one
Livid with terror, clutching at his knees. . .
Our chaps were sticking 'em like pigs . . . "O hell!"
He thought--"there's things in war one dare not tell
Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads
Of dying heroes and their deathless deeds."

Siegfried Sassoon

This one was written by my Great Uncle Private 8402 George Green. He was not a poet but just an ordinary soldier who was killed after wounds on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. He fought at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.


Battle of Neuve Chapelle

8402 Pvte George Green (1889-1916)

Did you hear of the Lincolns
of their fame I will try to tell.
How they helped in that Glorious Victory
in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.

It was about six in the morning
as we waited to start the attack.
All the boys were eager for Battle,
with six hundred guns at our back.

Of a sudden the guns starting barking,
the twelve inch and nine point two’s.
As the other I would like to mention,
as there were Huns more than a few.

My God when the shells started bursting
you would think hell had been let loose.
With the enemy one consolation,
to give in or retire which they choose.

It lasted an hour and a quarter
when we received the order to charge.
We were over the top like lightning,
with a cheer from the R.I.R.’s

It was then our Gallant Colonel
received the first wound of the day.
His last words were have we took the trenches,
it was then that God called him away.

The gallant R.I.R.’s took the village
as they meant from the start.
I’ll always take off my hat to the Irish
on that terrible tenth of March.

Nice to see a Tommy's efforts, Mike.
Marina

Lovely piece by your Great Uncle, Mike. Your remark "He was not a poet but just an ordinary soldier" disturbed me as did Marina answer. It lead to the following train of thought. Who do we consider a WW1 poet. Somebody that was published, wrote more than one poem, well educated, an Officer. I wonder what Private George Green might have penned if he had live longer.
This is not an attack on you, Mike or you, Marina but just I think a bit of frustration on how we still seem to make a distinction between the working class and the Officer class after all these years. I think I have been reading too many WW1 books and re-discovering the difficulty of the researching the common soldier but not the Officers.

greetings

L

No creative artist is defined by his class, only by his ability. Owen isn't a great poet because of his class or his rank, but because of his superior artistry; by the same token, Ivor Gurney is not a lesser poet because he was a ranker.
I expect Mike means that his uncle does not rank among the greats because he was an ordinary man of ordinary talents who thought that poetry was a more fitting way to express what he was feeling on a day that obviously moved him and inspired him. There are times when everyday prose just will not do, so George Green reached for something else, something more ambitious to commemorate his dead Colonel and his Pals and a triumph. This gives him a place among the war poets. That he is not one of the most accomplished war poets has nothing to do with class or rank.

To be honest the thought of Class or Rank didn't even enter into my thoughts on this. He was an ordinary Soldier, he was a Private and died for his country in a land that was not his. He was not a Poet in the true sense of the word. He didn't have anything published, as this (as far as I know) is the only piece in existance. Perhaps he wrote more, I don't know. I discovered this written in pencil on a small scrap of paper in his personal belongings that were returned to his family after his death after being fataly wounded on the first day of the Somme 1916. These items were given to me by my Grandmother (His Sister). However, and I'm sure he would have agreed, he was an ordinary soldier carrying out his orders. The piece written about the Victory at Neuve Chapelle was a simple piece that everyone could understand and told of his encounters "on that terrible tenth of March". No more no less. If this makes him a war poet then ok, I'm sure he would have been proud, I am. But to look for issues with Class and/or Rank by being referred to as an ordinary soldier is wrong.
Mike

Again my apologies, Mike and Marina, and of course any others that might have viewed my remarks as incorrect. I, in no way wish to distract from your views of these fine gentlemen poets of all classes and ranks. They did their bit and left a legacy of fine words that still move us by their innocence, directness or no holds barred approach to recording their war in their way.

greetings

L

No offence taken, just good debate !!
Mike

This was sent to me ... I know nothing about its origins or the poet.

The Anzac on the Wall.


I wandered thru a country town 'cos I had time to spare,
And went into an antique shop to see what was in there.
Old Bikes and pumps and kero lamps, but hidden by it all,
A photo of a soldier boy - an Anzac on the Wall.

"The Anzac have a name?" I asked. The old man answered "No,.
The ones who could have told me mate, have passed on long ago."
The old man kept on talking and, according to his tale,
The photo was unwanted junk bought from a clearance sale.

"I asked around," the old man said, "but no one knows his face,
He's been on that wall twenty years, deserves a better place.
For some one must have loved him so, it seems a shame somehow."
I nodded in agreement and then said, "I'll take him now."

My nameless digger's photo, well it was a sorry sight,
A cracked glass pane and a broken frame - I had to make it right.
To prise the photo from its frame I took care just in case,
'Cause only sticky paper held the cardboard back in place.

I peeled away the faded screed and much to my surprise,
Two letters and a telegram appeared before my eyes.
The first reveals my Anzac's name and regiment of course,
John Mathew Francis Stuart - of Australia's own Light Horse.

This letter written from the front, my interest now was keen,
This note was dated August seventh 1917.
"Dear Mum, I'm at Khalasa Springs not far from the Red Sea,
They say it's in the Bible - looks like a Billabong to me.

"My Kathy wrote I'm in her prayers she's still my bride to be,
I just cant wait to see you both you're all the world to me.
And Mum you'll soon meet Bluey, last month they shipped him out,
I told him to call on you when he's up and about."

"That Bluey is a larrikin and we all thought it funny,
He lobbed a Turkish hand grenade into the Co's dunny.
I told you how he dragged me wounded in from no man's land,
He stopped the bleeding closed the wound with only his bare hand."

"Then he copped it at the front from some stray shrapnel blast,
It was my turn to drag him in and I thought he wouldn't last.
He woke up in hospital and nearly lost his mind,
Cause out there on the battlefield he'd left one leg behind."

"He's been in a bad way mum, he knows he'll ride no more,
Like me he loves a horse's back, he was a champ before.
So please Mum can you take him in, he's been like my brother,
Raised in a Queensland orphanage he's never known a mother."

But struth, I miss Australia mum and in my mind each day,
I am a mountain cattleman on high plains far away.
I'm mustering white-faced cattle, with no camel's hump in sight,
And I waltz my Matilda by a campfire every night.

I wonder who rides Billy, I heard the pub burnt down,
I'll always love you and please say hooroo to all in town".
The second letter I could see was in a lady's hand,
An answer to her soldier son there in a foreign land.

Her copperplate was perfect, the pages neat and clean,
It bore the date November 3rd 1917.
''T'was hard enough to lose your Dad, without you at the war,
I'd hoped you would be home by now - each day I miss you more"

"Your Kathy calls around a lot since you have been away,
To share with me her hopes and dreams about your wedding day.
And Bluey has arrived - and what a godsend he has been,
We talked and laughed for days about the things you've done and seen."

"He really is a comfort and works hard around the farm,
I read the same hope in his eyes that you won't come to harm.
Mc Connell's kids rode Billy but suddenly that changed,
We had a violent lightning storm and it was really strange."

"Last Wednesday just on midnight, not a single cloud in sight,
It raged for several minutes, it gave us all a fright.
It really spooked your Billy - and he screamed and bucked and reared,
And then he rushed the sliprail fence, which by a foot he cleared."

"They brought him back next afternoon but something's changed I fear,
It's like the day you brought him home, for no one can get near.
Remember when you caught him with his black and flowing mane?,
Now Horse breakers fear the beast that only you can tame,"

"That's why we need you home son" - then the flow of ink went dry,
This letter was unfinished and I couldn't work out why.
Until I started reading the letter number three,
A yellow telegram delivered news of tragedy.

Her son killed in action - oh - what pain that must have been,
The same date as her letter - 3rd November 1917.
This letter which was never sent, became then one of three,
She sealed behind the photo's face - the face she longed to see.

And John's home town's old timers -children when he went to war,
Would say no greater cattleman had left the town before.
They knew his widowed mother well - and with respect did tell,
How when she lost her only boy she lost her mind as well.

She could not face the awful truth, to strangers she would speak,
"My Johnny's at the war you know, he's coming home next week."
They all remembered Bluey, he stayed on to the end,
A younger man with wooden leg became her closest friend.

And he would go and find her when she wandered old and weak,
And always softly say, "Yes dear - John will be home next week."
Then when she died Bluey moved on, to Queensland some did say,
I tried to find out where he went but don't know to this day.

And Kathy never wed - a lonely spinster some found odd,
She wouldn't set foot in a church - she'd turned her back on God.
John's mother left no will I learned on my detective trail,
This explains my photo's journey, that clearance sale.

So I continued digging 'cause I wanted to know more,
I found John's name with thousands in the records of the war.
His last ride proved his courage - a ride you will acclaim,
The Light Horse Charge at Beersheba of everlasting fame.

That last day in October back in 1917,
At 4pm our brave boys fell - that sad fact I did glean.
That's when John's life was sacrificed, the record's crystal clear,
But 4pm in Beersheba is midnight over here.......

So as John's gallant spirit rose to cross the great divide,
Were lightning bolts back home a signal from the other side?
Is that why Billy bolted and went racing as in pain,
Because he'd never feel his master on his back again?

Was it coincidental? Same time - same day - same date?
Some proof of numerology, or just a quirk of fate?
I think it's more than that, you know, as I've heard wiser men,
Acknowledge there are many things that go beyond our ken.

Where craggy peaks guard secrets neath dark skies torn asunder,
Where hoof beats are companions to the rolling waves of thunder.
Where lightning cracks like 303's and ricochets again,
Where howling moaning gusts of wind sound just like dying men.

Some Mountain cattlemen have sworn on lonely alpine track,
They've glimpsed a huge black stallion - Light Horseman on his back.
Yes sceptics say, it's swirling clouds just forming apparitions,
Oh no, my friend you can't dismiss all this as superstition.

The desert of Beersheba - or windswept Aussie range,
John Stuart rides forever there - Now I don't find that strange.
Now some gaze at this photo and they often question me,
And I tell them a small white lie, and say he's family.
"You must be proud of him." they say - I tell them, one and all,
That's why he takes the pride of place - my Anzac on the Wall.

Oh, my - that was a tear jerker!
Marina

Sandra

'The Anzac on the Wall' was written as performance poetry by Jim Brown of Victoria. He won 1st place for 'original performance' of this poem at the 2005 Victorian Bush Poetry Championships.

It is a pretty fascinating tale.
Cheers, Frev

Thanks Frev ... very worthy of the award.

I tried to locate Stuart but no luck.

Bright Blessings
Sandra

I think 'Disabled' by Wilfred Owen is a particularly poignant poem.

Apologies if its already been posted anywhere else.

Disabled
He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.


About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light-blue trees
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,
- In the old times, before he threw away his knees.
Now he will never feel again how slim
Girls' waists are, or how warm their subtle hands,
All of them touch him like some queer disease.


There was an artist silly for his face,
For it was younger than his youth, last year.
Now he is old; his back will never brace;
He's lost his colour very far from here,
Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry,
And half his lifetime lapsed in the hot race,
And leap of purple spurted from his thigh.


One time he liked a bloodsmear down his leg,
After the matches carried shoulder-high.
It was after football, when he'd drunk a peg,
He thought he'd better join. He wonders why...
Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts.
That's why; and maybe, too, to please his Meg,
Aye, that was it, to please the giddy jilts,
He asked to join. He didn't have to beg;
Smiling they wrote his lie; aged nineteen years.
Germans he scarcely thought of; and no fears
Of Fear came yet. He thought of jewelled hilts
For daggers in plaid socks; of smart salutes;
And care of arms; and leave; and pay arrears;
Esprit de corps; and hints for young recruits.
And soon, he was drafted out with drums and cheers.


Some cheered him home, but not as crowds cheer Goal.
Only a solemn man who brought him fruits
Thanked him; and then inquired about his soul.


Now, he will spend a few sick years in Institutes,
And do what things the rules consider wise,
And take whatever pity they may dole.
To-night he noticed how the women's eyes
Passed from him to the strong men that were whole.
How cold and late it is! Why don't they come
And put him into bed? Why don't they come?

My favourite war poem would have to be "Aftermath" by S. Sassoon. Not a big surprise, I guess, seeing as it's my signature. I don't think I've read a war poem that's moved me quite as much as this one has.

I don't know that I can pick one favourite, but I always find this one moving:

Futility

Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.


Think how it wakes the seeds,—
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides,
Full-nerved—still warm—too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?


Wilfred Owen

Marina, I also love that one. Between Owen and Sassoon, it's difficult to choose just one poem that stands out.

I must recommend the book, "In Flanders Fields and other poems of the First World War" edited by Brian Busby.
Beautiful poetry

My favourites poems from the book are

V. The Soldier by Rupert Brooke Page 17

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever 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.


Into Battle (Flanders, April 1915) by Julian Grenfell page 27

The naked earth is warm with spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun's gaze glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze;
And life is colour and warmth and light,
And a striving evermore for these;
And he is dead who will not fight;
And who dies fighting has increase.

The fighting man shall from the sun
Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth;
Speed with the light-foot winds to run,
And with the trees to newer birth;
And find, when fighting shall be done,
Great rest, and fullness after dearth.

All the bright company of Heaven
Hold him in their high comradeship,
The Dog-Star, and the Sisters Seven,
Orion's Belt and sworded hip.

The woodland trees that stand together,
They stand to him each one a friend;
They gently speak in the windy weather;
They guide to valley and ridge's end.

The kestrel hovering by day,
And the little owls that call by night,
Bid him be swift and keen as they,
As keen of ear, as swift of sight.

The blackbird sings to him,"Brother, brother,
If this be the last song you shall sing,
Sing well, for you may not sing another;
Brother, sing."

In dreary, doubtful, waiting hours,
Before the brazen frenzy starts,
The horses show him nobler powers;
O patient eyes, courageous hearts!

And when the burning moment breaks,
And all things else are out of mind,
And only joy of battle takes
Him by the throat, and makes him blind,

Through joy and blindness he shall know,
Not caring much to know, that still
Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so
That it be not the Destin'd Will.

The thundering line of battle stands,
And in the air Death moans and sings:
But Day shall clasp him with strong hands,
And Night shall fold him in soft wings.

I really love the last two lines of this poem, gives me goospimples every time

Jen

'A dead Boche' by Robert Graves.
A poem de glorifying and recalling the true horror of war.

'In Flanders Fields' by John McCrae.
A very poignant poem,possibly one of the best known poems of the war.

'Dulce et decorum est' by Wilfred Owen.
A poem i read at school but didnt appreciate.A descriptive account of life at the front,where life was fragile and death a constant companion.

Anthony.

Joint favourites: In Flanders Fields and Man at Arms (Menin Gate). I was screeching with delight at work - the "girls" gave me the most wonderful gift for my birthday. As i was gently pulling it out of the cardboard tube I kept hoping and praying it was what it was... could only see the midnight blue of the sky...... joy of joys.... THE best birthday present ever.

A print of "Menin Gate at Midnight". It is truly haunting and superb and I cannot wait to get it wall mounted under a downlight.

Susan.

Susan,

Could you perhaps post the poem "Man at Arms"?

Man at Arms
What are you guarding, Man-at-Arms?
Why do you watch and wait?
'I guard the graves, said the Man-at-Arms,
I guard the graves by Flanders farms
Where the dead will rise at my call to arms,
And march to the Menin gate'.

'When do they march then, Man-at-Arms?
Cold is the hour - and late'
'They march tonight' said the Man-at-Arms,
With the moon on the Menin gate.
They march when the midnight bids them go.
With they're rifles slung and their pipes aglow,
Along the roads,the roads they know,
The roads to the Menin gate.

'What are they singing, Man-at-Arms,
As they march to the Menin gate?'
'The Marching songs', said the Man-at-Arms,
That let them laugh at fate.
No more will the night be cold for them,
For the last tattoo has rolled for them,
And their souls will sing as of old for them,
As they march to the Menin gate.
Anon

Brilliant, brilliant poem - shiver down the spine and lump in the throat time.

Here is another anonymous one:

A thousand strong with laugh and song,
to charge the guns or line a trench,
we marched away one August day
and fought beside the gallant French.

A thousand strong, but not for long,
some lie entombed in Belgian clay.
Some torn by shell lie where they fell
beneath the turf of La Bassee.

But when at night up to the fight
eager from camp or trench we throng;
our comrades dead march at our head
and still we charge, a thousand strong!

You're not the only one getting the shivers!
Marina

I'll have a root about and see what else I can find................post tomorrow.

Thank you, Marina, for posting 'Man at Arms'. Very haunting indeed.

This one is by Wifred Gibson - Back

They ask 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.

I can't remember who wrote this one and hope I have got it right.

Lament for Mark Anderson

On the low table by the bed
Where it was set aside last night,
Beyond the bloodied, bandaged, lifeless head,
It twinkles in the morning light.
And, as I gaze upon it
I cannot speak ,or move, or think.
Only gaze upon the glass of water
That he could not drink.

Wilfrid Gibson.