Thank you. Remembered the poem but didn't have a chance to look it up last night.
Strange how some poems just stick in the mind. "A thousand strong" was from memory as well and "Man At Arms" is indeliby printed there as well.

I have a terrible memory for memorising poetry, it caused me endless problems at school and is not improving with age. I do however remember themes and that one struck a chord. I was able to find it again fairly easily.

The Rear-Guard
(HINDENBURG LINE, APRIL 1917)
(from Counter-Attack)
GROPING along the tunnel, step by step,
He winked his prying torch with patching glare
From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome air.

Tins, boxes, bottles, shapes too vague to know;
A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed;
And he, exploring fifty feet below
The rosy gloom of battle overhead.

Tripping, he grabbed the wall; saw some one lie
Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug,
And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug.
'I'm looking for headquarters.' No reply.
'God blast your neck!' (For days he'd had no sleep,)
'Get up and guide me through this stinking place.'

Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap,
And flashed his beam across the livid face
Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore
Agony dying hard ten days before;
And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound.

Alone he staggered on until he found
Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted stair
To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.
At last, with sweat of horror in his hair,
He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,
Unloading hell behind him step by step.


Another shivery one.
Marina

Indeed it is.

That one gives me goosebumps every time I read it, Marina.


Another one I thought to add, this one by Rupert Brooke:


The Soldier

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.

Does anyone know of an anthology of German poetry of the Great War? I have read some in German but need one as a present for a friend who does not speak the language. I have had a search online but not come up with anything.

Thanks

THE DEATH-BED

Rain ; he could hear it rustling through the dark ;
Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;
Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers
That soak the woods ; not the harsh rain that sweeps
Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace
Gently and slowly washing life away.



He stirred, shifting his body ; then the pain
Leaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore
His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.
But some one was beside him ; soon he lay
Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.
And Death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and
stared.



Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him ; rouse him ; you may save him yet.
He's young; he hated war; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?

But Death replied : " I choose him." So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

Siegfried Sassoon

Just finished John Ellis's 'Eye-Deep in Hell' which quotes from poems by A.G. West, of whom I'd never heard before. One was given early on in this thread, here is another.

The Night Patrol
France, MARCH 1916.

Over the top! The wire’s thin here, unbarbed
Plain rusty coils, not staked, and low enough:
Full of old tins, though — “When you’re through, all three,
Aim quarter left for fifty yards or so,
Then straight for that new piece of German wire;
See if it’s thick, and listen for a while
For sounds of working; don’t run any risks;
About an hour; now, over!”
And we placed
Our hands on the topmost sand-bags, leapt, and stood
A second with curved backs, then crept to the wire,
Wormed ourselves tinkling through, glanced back, and dropped.
The sodden ground was splashed with shallow pools,
And tufts of crackling cornstalks, two years old,
No man had reaped, and patches of spring grass.
Half-seen, as rose and sank the flares, were strewn
The wrecks of our attack: the bandoliers,
Packs, rifles, bayonets, belts, and haversacks,
Shell fragments, and the huge whole forms of shells
Shot fruitlessly — and everywhere the dead.
Only the dead were always present — present
As a vile sickly smell of rottenness;
The rustling stubble and the early grass,
The slimy pools — the dead men stank through all,
Pungent and sharp; as bodies loomed before,
And as we passed, they stank: then dulled away
To that vague fœtor, all encompassing,
Infecting earth and air. They lay, all clothed,
Each in some new and piteous attitude
That we well marked to guide us back: as he,
Outside our wire, that lay on his back and crossed
His legs Crusader-wise: I smiled at that,
And thought on Elia and his Temple Church.
From him, at quarter left, lay a small corpse,
Down in a hollow, huddled as in a bed,
That one of us put his hand on unawares.
Next was a bunch of half a dozen men
All blown to bits, an archipelago
Of corrupt fragments, vexing to us three,
Who had no light to see by, save the flares.
On such a trail, so light, for ninety yards
We crawled on belly and elbows, till we saw,
Instead of lumpish dead before our eyes,
The stakes and crosslines of the German wire.
We lay in shelter of the last dead man,
Ourselves as dead, and heard their shovels ring
Turning the earth, then talk and cough at times.
A sentry fired and a machine-gun spat;
They shot a glare above us, when it fell
And spluttered out in the pools of No Man’s Land,
We turned and crawled past the remembered dead:
Past him and him, and them and him, until,
For he lay some way apart, we caught the scent
Of the Crusader and slide past his legs,
And through the wire and home, and got our rum

ARTHUR GRAEME WEST, 1891-1917

Educated at Blundell's and Oxford. Enlisted with the Public School's Battalion in February 1915.
He grew to hate the war, and lost his faith in God. He was convinced he should protest or desert but could not find the courage to do so.
He was killed by a sniper's bullet, 3 April, 1917 at Bapaume. His war diary, The Diary of a Dead Officer, which contained his poetry, was published in 1919.

(from the War Poetry website)

cheers Martin B

Very powerful - I've never seen that one before.
Marina

That is a very bitter phrase for during the war, " the remembered dead ".

"the remembered dead" - I too sense a touch of bitter irony in the author's words, Tom.

Once living, breathing and brave, but now reduced to sign-posts to guide them "home" - at least of some use still to members of that patrol. What a strange and unholy world they found themselves in.



Cheers-salesie.

I'm not sure if anyone has already mentioned this as I haven't got time to go through 14 pages of this thread, as good as it is! My favourite Great War poem is 'England to her sons' by W. N. Hodgson. I first heard this poem on the 'Private peaceful' album, where the a capella folk singers Coope Boyes and Simpson set it to a hymn. It moved me in the context of the play, and even listened to or read on its own I find it powerful.

I think one of the reasons I like it is that it captures something of the patriotic fervour of August 1914, which is when it was apparently written. As much as I like Sassoon, Owen et al, often I wonder if they spoke for the vast majority of soldiers, and especially they didn't reflect the mindset of the millions who volunteered (at least not at first).

The poem for me conjures up the image of a wise and weary Britannia, who from Agincourt to Waterloo has seen generations of her children leave her shores never to return, including the author of the poem who was killed on 1st July 1916.

England to her sons

Sons of mine, I hear you thrilling
To the trumpet call of war;
Gird ye then, I give you freely
As I gave your sires before,
All the noblest of the children I in love and anguish bore.
Free in service, wise in justice,
Fearing but dishonour's breath;
Steeled to suffer uncomplaining
Loss and failure, pain and death;
Strong in faith that sees the issue and in hope that triumpheth.

Go, and may the God of battles
You in His good guidance keep:
And if He in wisdom giveth
Unto His beloved sleep,
I accept it nothing asking, save a little space to weep.

The author is mostly remembered for the poem 'Before Action', written two days before his death.

There is a tendency to forget or at least push into the background, the poets who saw the war and a soldier's part in it as a patriotic duty. Who spoke of the glory and the right of the country to demand the lives of its citizens in a just war. Rupert Brooke was one of the better known, McRae is another. Kipling, Thomas Hardy of course and Laurence Binyon.

I'm not sure if anyone has already mentioned this one, but it's one of my favourites. The grief is palpable.

'Have you news of my boy Jack?'
Not this tide.
'When d'you think that he'll come back?'
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

'Has any one else had word of him?'
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

'Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?'
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind -
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

I remember reading Sassoon at school. The more I found out about him, the more I realised Golf is Hell. Dislike the man, his attitude, his bein, and Golf, ever since. Not a fan of Wilfred Owen either.

Yes, it is. Did you see the drama 'My Boy Jacck' on TV? The poem was recited - wonderful stuff.

Marina

Yoshi, that was after he had lost his son. Here is a verse from " The Irish Guards ",
We're not so old in the Army List
But we're not so new in the ring.
For we carried our packs with Marshal Saxe
When Louis was our king.
But Douglas Haig's our marshal now,
And we're King George's men
And after one hundred and seventy years
We're fighting for France again.

More like the tenor of your quotation is " The Nativity".

The Babe was laid in the Manger
between the gentle kine--
All safe from cold and danger--
" But it was not so with mine,
( With mine! With mine!)
" Is it well with the child, is it well?"
The waiting mother prayed.
" For I know not how he fell,
And I know not where he is laid."

This is one where the very strange syntax and complex setting tend to come between the reader and the harrowing plea of the poetry. Very personal, and strange that Kipling could be writing that at the same time as celebrating The Irish Guards, his son's regiment.

Does anyone have the full text of Alfred Noyes's 'The Victory Ball'? I've managed to glean some fragments from the internet, but obviously there are huge chunks missing:


The Victory Ball
Alfred Noyes

I

The cymbals crash,

And the dancers walk.

With long white stockings

And arms of chalk,

Butterfly skirts,

And white breasts bare,

And shadows of dead men

Watching 'em there.

II.

Shadows of dead men

Stand by the wall,

Watching the fun

Of the Victory Ball.

They do not reproach,

Because they know,

If they're forgotten

It's better so.

IV.

Fat wet bodies

Go waddling by,

Girdled with satin,

Though God knows why:

Gripped by satyrs

In white and black.

With a fat wet hand

On the fat wet back.

In Atlanta


Marina

Yes it was very well done I thought.

Yes Kipling's poetry offers all sorts of strange contrasts. I haven't heard the Babe in the manger one before. I assumed there was a change in his poetry after his son's death but the sentiments in this one are similar to the 'Not this tide' one.

Kipling was deeply affected by the loss of his son and wrote poetry reflecting that. He also seems to have still been able to write ' official ' verse. A lifetime of patriotic zeal for the British Empire would not be easily thrown aside. He must have struggled to come to terms with the actuality of the sacrifice which he had called on all to be prepared to make.

Talking of Kipling, has anyone read his short story 'Mary Postgate'. One of the most bizarre stories about the Great War I've ever read, particuarly coming from a writer like Kipling. The last few paragraphs were quite horrifying..

Powerful story!

Marina

This is the full text of The Victory Ball (although some of the punctuation may be wrong):
The Victory Ball by Alfred Noyes

The cymbals crash
And the dancers walk
With long silk stockings
And arms of chalk
With butterfly skirts
And white breasts bare
And shadows of dead men
Watching 'em there.
God! how the dead men
Grin by the wall
Watching the fun
Of the victory ball.
They do not reproach
Because they know
If they're forgotten
It's better so.
Under the dancing feet
Are the graves
Dazzle and motley
In long bright waves.
Brushed by the palm fronds
Grapple and whirl
Ox-eyed matron
And slim white girl.
Fat wet bodies
Go waddling by
Girdled in satin
Tho' God knows why,
Gripped by satyrs
In white and black
With a fat wet hand
On the fat wet back.
See, there's a new girl
Fresh from school
Learning the ropes
As the old hands rule.
God! how that dead boy gapes and grins
As the tom-toms bang
And the shimmy begins.
'What did you think you'd
Find' asked a shade
'When the last shot echoed
And peace was made?'
'Christ' laughed the
Fleshless jaws of his friend,
'I thought they'd be
Praying for worlds to mend
And making earth better
Or something damn silly
Like whitewashing hell
Or Picc-damn-dilly.
They've a sense of humour
These women of ours,
These exquisite lilies,
These fresh young flowers'.
'Pish', said a statesman
Standing near, 'we mustn't
Reproach 'em, they're young you see'.
'Ah', said the deadmen,
'So were we'.
Victory! Victory!
On with the dance
Back to the jungle
The new beasts prance.
God, how the dead men
Grin by the wall
Watching the fun
Of the Victory Ball.

Being a mother, I find Jessie Pope's 'Socks' to be close to my heart.....probably because I imagine if one of my sons was away at war I would find myself behaving exactly the same....


Shining pins that dart and click
In the fireside's sheltered peace
Check the thoughts that cluster thick -
20 plain and then decrease.

He was brave - well, so was I -
Keen and merry, but his lip
Quivered when he said goodbye -
Purl the seam-stitch, purl and slip.

Never used to living rough,
Lots of things he'd got to learn;
Wonder if he's warm enough -
Knit 2, catch 2, knit 1, turn.

Hark! The paper-boys again!
Wish that shout could be suppressed;
Keeps one always on the strain -
Knit off 9, and slip the rest.

Wonder if he's fighting now,
What he's done and where he's been;
He'll come out on top, somehow -
Slip 1, knit 2, purl 14.

Thanks for that, Nickoby. I have been unable to find it ANYWHERE!

Marina

The story has been adapted to a play - and I[ve got tickets to see it next week at the Edinburgh Festival!

Marina

I love sassoon's .

The Hawthorn Tree


Not much to me is yonder lane
Where i go every day
But when there's been a shower of rain
And hedge-birds whistle gay,
I know my lad that's out in France
With fearsome things to see
Would give his eyes for just one glance
At our white Hawthorn tree.

Not much to me is yonder lane
Where _he_ so longs to tread;
But when there's been a shower of rain
I think i'll never weep again
Until i've heard he's dead.

I found this poem recently which relates to a rear guard action fought by the 2Bn Duke of Wellington's West Riding Regiment on the 24th August 1914 at Wasmes, Belguim at the start of the retreat from Mons. (My Great Grandfather was one of those brave heroes who perished on that day).

I initially posted this in another thread but thought to add it here as it may be more appropriate

THE GALLANT WEST RIDINGS SAVED THE FIFTH DIVISION

Of our brave West Riding heroes
Tell the praise forth today,
Who at Mons with hosts against them
Kept those Prussian Huns at bay;
Tho’ Death stalk’d thro’ them, striking
Our lads in hundreds low,
They, “Saved the Fifth Division,”
And baulked the rabid Foe!

Five hundred of them perished-
More than five hundred fell-
Good God! How any issued
From that Hell, ‘tis hard to tell!
But all the grit of Yorkshire
Was in their bones we know-
Ay “they saved the Fifth Division”
From the onslaught of the Foe!

They saved some thousand others,
Who, but for them were lost,
Not counting dear their own lives,
They flinched not at the cost;
True to West Riding breeding,
That’s game when dangers grow,
Ah! They “saved the Fifth Division”
From the ramping, raging Foe.

Tom Halifax, in the Halifax Guardian about 1917

Edward Thomas's poem 'In Memorium' sums up that the men who died gave up half a life time or more of simple pleasures that we pretty much take for granted. For me that is the real tragedy of the whole thing. From memory it is:-

The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts should
Have gathered them but will never do again


That it is just 4 lines is also 'a good thing' as far as poems are concerned.

Neil

Came across this today, apologies if it has been posted before.

Philip Larkin
MCMXIV:

Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;

And the countryside not caring
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat's restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

The Ancre at Hamel Afterwards

Where tongues were loud and hearts were light
I heard the Ancre flow;
Waking oft in 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 dreams
The voices of today?
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 it’s rainy tortured blood
Had swirled into my own,
When by its battered bank I stood
And shared its wounded moan.

Edmund Blunden

From; Beaucourt Revisited by A P Herbert

I crossed the blood red ribbon, that once was no-man's land,
I saw a misty daybreak and a creeping minute-hand;
And here the lads went over, and there was Harmsworth shot,
And here was William lying-but the new men know 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 answered low,
The new men know not Beaucourt, but we are here-we know.

Photo
Ancre War Cemetery

I enjoyed seeing the poems accompanied by the photos. Good idea!
Marina

Thanks Marina, I think that photos can perhaps give an added dimension to the poems especially for those not lucky enough to have visited the locations.

Norman

MENIN GATE

“ 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”.

“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”.

REMEMBER

Take my hand and come with me
to a special place across the sea
a sacred place in hallowed ground
its not a church you'll understand
just a part of home in another land

A place where gravestones stand arrayed
like a phantom army on parade
stand close to me and patience keep
and soon you'll see a brave man weep
he cries for his comrade beneath the stones
and I tell you friend he's not alone

Scenes like this are commonplace
in our special meeting place
so as you stroll down memory lane
think of us who must remain
and now its time to say adieu
but remember friend, we died for you

Photo: Tyne Cot War Cemetery, FLanders.

THE SECRET

YOU were askin' 'ow we sticks it,
Sticks this blarsted rain and mud,
'Ow it is we keeps on smilin'
When the place runs red wi' blood.
Since you're askin', I can tell ye,
And I thinks I tells ye true,
But it ain't official, mind ye,
It's a tip 'twixt me and you.
For the General thinks it's tactics,
And the bloomin' plans e' makes;
And the C.O. thinks it's trainin',
And the trouble as he takes.
Sargint-Major says it's drillin',
And 'is straffin' on parade;
Doctor swears it's sanitation,
And some patent stinks 'e's made.
Padre tells us it's religion,
And the Spirit of the Lord;
But I ain't got much religion,
And I sticks it still, by Gawd.
Quarters kids us it's the rations,
And the dinners as we gets;
But I knows what keeps us smilin',
It's the Woodbine Cigarettes.
For the daytime seems more dreary,
And the night-time seems to drag
To eternity of darkness,
When ye 'aven't got a fag.
Then the rain seems some'ow wetter,
And the cold cuts twice as keen,
And ye keeps on seein' Boches,
What the Sargint 'asn't seen.
If ole Fritz 'as been and got ye,
And ye 'ave to stick the pain,
If ye 'aven't got a fag on,
Why, it 'urts as bad again.
When there ain't no fags to pull at,
Then there's terror in the ranks.
That's the secret--(yes, I'll 'ave one)
Just a fag--and many Tanks.

G. A. Studdert-Kennedy

(WOODBINE WILLY)

here's a few (and what l reckon is their best poems), many were more 'anti-war' poets;

Jessie Pope--The Call
Nina Murdoch--Warbride
Vera Brittain--To My Brother
my favourite May Herschel-Clark---The Mother (written in 1915 in direct response to Brooke's The Soldier)
May Sinclair--Field Ambulance in Retreat
Margaret Postgate Cole--The Falling Leaves
Constance Powell---A Story of Today
Kay Boyle==Mothers
May Wedderburn Cannan--Lamplight
Margaret Sackville--A Memory
also
Eleanor Farjeon, Nina McDonald, M. Winifred Wedgwood, Mary Gabrielle Collins, Helen Parry Eden, Rose Macaulay, Theresa hooley, Eva Dobell, Edith Warton, Charlotte Mew

enjoy
dekenai

One of my favourites;

A poem by Alfred Lichtenstein--who was killed within the first two months of the war.

God protect me from misfortune,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
May no high explosives hit me,
May our enemies, the ********,
Never take me, never shoot me,
May l never die in squalor
For our well beloved Fatherland.

Look, I'd like to live much longer,
Milk the cows and stuff my girlfriends
And beat up that lousy Josef,
Get drunk on lots more occasions
Till a blissful death o'ertakes me.

Look, l'll offer heartfelt prayers,
Say my beads seven times a daily,
If you, God, of your gracious bounty
Choose to kill my mate, say Huber
Or else Meier, and let me off.

But l suppose l have to take it
Don;t let me get badly wounded.
Send me just a little leg wound
Or a slight gash on the forearm
So l go home as a hero
Who has got a tale to tell.

brilliant----
rdc

This is from May Herschel-Clark, (1850-1950), that was written in 1917, in direct response to Brooke's 'The Soldier'.
May was an anti-war poet.

The Mother

If you should die, think only this of me
In that still quietness where is space for thought,
Where parting, loss and bloodshed shall not be,
And men may rest themselves and dream of nought:
That in some place a mystic mile away
One whom you loved has drained the bitter cup
Till there is nought to drink; has faced the day
Once more, and now, has raised the standard up.

And think, my son, with eyes grown clear and dry
She lives as though for ever in your sight,
Loving the things you loved, with heart aglow
For country, honour, truth, traditions high,
--Proud that you paid their price. (And if some night
Her heart should break--well, lad, you will not know.



rdc

A ripper----
rdc

Australia's Woodbine Willy,

Ginger Mick---from C.J.Dennis, The Moods of Ginger Mick,

XV. "A GALLANT GENTLEMAN"

A month ago the world grew grey fer me;
A month ago the light went out fer Rose.
To 'er they broke it gentle as might be;
But fer 'is pal 'twus one uv them swift blows
That stops the 'eart-beat; fer to me it came
Jist, "Killed in Action," an' beneath 'is name.

'Ow many times 'ave I sat dreamin' 'ere
An' seen the boys returnin', gay an' proud.
I've seen the greetin's, 'eard 'is rousin' cheer,
An' watched ole Mick come stridin' thro' the crowd.
'Ow many times 'ave I sat in this chair
An' seen 'is 'ard chiv grinnin' over there.

'E's laughed, an' told me stories uv the war.
Changed some 'e looked, but still the same ole Mick,
Keener an' cleaner than 'e wus before;
'E's took me 'and, an' said 'e's in great nick.
Sich wus the dreamin's uv a fool 'oo tried
To jist crack 'ardy, an' 'old gloom aside.

An' now - well, wot's the odds? I'm only one:
One out uv many 'oo 'as lost a friend.
Manlike, I'll bounce again, an' find me fun;
But fer Poor Rose it seems the bitter end.
Fer Rose, an' sich as Rose, when one man dies
It seems the world goes black before their eyes.

Ar, well; if Mick could 'ear me blither now,
I know jist wot 'e'd say an' 'ow 'e'd look:
"Aw, cut it out, mate; chuck that silly row!
There ain't so sense in takin' sich things crook.
I've took me gamble; an' there's none to blame
Becos I drew a blank; it's in the game."

A parson cove he broke the noos to Rose -
A friend uv mine, a bloke wiv snowy 'air,
An' gentle, soothin' sort o'ways, 'oo goes
Thro' life jist 'umpin' others' loads uv care.
Instid uv Mick - jist one rough soljer lad -
Yeh'd think 'e'd lost the dearest friend 'e 'ad.

But 'ow kin blows be sof'n'd sich as that?
Rose took it as 'er sort must take sich things.
An' if the jolt uv it 'as knocked me flat,
Well, 'oo is there to blame 'er if it brings
Black thorts that comes to women when they frets,
An' makes 'er tork wild tork an' foolish threats.

An' then there comes the letter that wus sent
To give the strength uv Ginger's passin' out -
A long, straight letter frum a bloke called Trent;
'Tain't no use tellin' wot it's orl about:
There's things that's in it I kin see quite clear
Ole Ginger Mick ud be ashamed to 'ear.

Things praisin 'im, that pore ole Mick ud say
Wus comin' it too 'ot; fer, spare me days!
I well remember that 'e 'ad a way
Uv curlin' up when 'e wus slung bokays.
An' Trent 'e seems to think that in some way
'E owes Mick somethin' that 'e can't repay.

Well, p'raps 'e does,- an' in the note 'e sends
'E arsts if Mick 'as people 'e kin find.
Fer Trent's an English toff wiv swanky friends,
An' wants to 'elp wot Ginger's left be'ind.
'E sez strange things in this 'ere note 'e sends:
"He was a gallant gentleman," it ends.

A gallant gentleman! Well, I dunno.
I 'ardly think that Mick ud like that name.
But this 'ere Trent's a toff, an' ort to know
The breedin' uv the stock frum which 'e came.
Gallant an' game Mick might 'a' bin; but then -
Lord! Fancy 'im among the gentlemen!

'E wus a man; that's good enough fer me,
'Oo wus 'is cobber many years before
'E writ it plain fer other blokes to see,
An' proved it good an' pleny at the war.
'E wus a man; an', by the way 'e died,
'E wus a man 'is friend can claim wiv pride.

The way 'e died ... Gawd! but it makes me proud
I ever 'eld 'is 'and, to read that tale.
An' Trent is one uv that 'igh-steppin' crowd
That don't sling pral'se around be ev'ry mail.
To 'im it seemed some great 'eroic lurk;
But Mick, I know, jist took it wiv 'is work.

No matter wot 'e done. It's jist a thing
I knoo 'e'd do if once 'e got the show.
An' it would never please 'im fer to sling
Tall tork at 'im jist cos 'e acted so.
"Don't make a song uv it!" I 'ear 'im growl,
"I've done me limit, an' tossed in the tow'l."

This little job, 'e knoo - an' I know well -
A thousand uv 'is cobbers would 'ave done.
Fer they are soljers; an' it's crook to tell
A tale that marks fer praise a single one.
An' that's 'ow Mick wouold 'ave it, as I know;
An', as 'e'd 'ave it, so we'll let it go.

Trent tells 'ow, when they found 'im, near the end,
'E starts a fag an' grins orl bright an' gay.
An' when they arsts fer messages to send
To friends, 'is look goes dreamin' far away.
"Look after Rose," 'e sez, "when I move on.
Look after ... Rose ... Mafeesh!" An' 'e wus gone.

"We buried 'im," sez Trent, "down by the beach.
We put mimosa on the mound uv sand
Above 'im. 'Twus the nearest thing in reach
To golden wattle uv 'is native land.
But never wus the fairest wattle wreath
More golden than the 'eart uv 'im beneath."

An' so - Mafeesh! as Mick 'ad learned to say.
'E's finished; an' there's few 'as marked 'im go.
Only one soljer, outed in the fray,
'Oo took 'is gamble, an' 'oo 'a 'is show.
There's few to mourn 'im: an' the less they leave,
The less uv sorrer, fewer 'earts to grieve.

An' when I'm feelin' blue, an' mopin' 'ere
About h epal I've lorst; Doreen, my wifem
She come an' takes my 'and, an' tells me, "Dear,
Ther's be more cause to mourn a wasted life.
'E proved 'imself a man, an' 'e's at rest."
An' so, I tries to think sich things is best.

A gallant gentleman ... Well, let it go.
They sez they've put them words above 'is 'ead,
Out there where lonely graves stretch in a row;
But Mick 'ell never mind it now 'e's dead.
An' where 'e's gone, when they weigh praise an' blame,
P'raps gentlemen an' men is much the same.

They fights; an' orl the land is filled wiv cheers.
They dies; an' 'ere an' there a 'eart is broke.
An' when I weighs it orl - the shouts, the tears -
I sees it's well Mick wus a lonely bloke.
'E found a game 'e knoo, an' played it well;
An' now 'e's gone. Wot more is there to tell?

A month ago, fer me the world grew grey;
A month ago the light went out fer Rose;
Becos one common soljer crossed the way,
Leavin' a common message as 'e goes.
But ev'ry dyin' soljer's 'ope lies there:
"Look after Rose. Mafeesh!" Gawd! It's a pray'r!

That's wot it is; an' when yeh sort it out,
Shuttin' yer ears to orl the sounds o' strife -
The shouts, the cheers, the curses - 'oo kin doubt
The claims uv women; mother, sweet'eart, wife?
An' 'oos to 'ear our soljers' dyin' wish?
An' 'oo's to 'eed? . . . "Look after Rose . . . Mafeesh!"

Though I live a few miles from Francis Ledwidge's birthplace in Slane, County Meath, and pass his cottage every day, and should perhaps show loyalty to a local hero, my favorite poem is W. B. Yeats' "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death". I first came upon it 35 years ago in school. The last six lines are sublime and always move me.

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

This is a poem by Siegfreid Sassoon called 'Local Train of Thought', which is a lovely play on words by itself. It has huge nostalgic implications for me, and always acts as a tonic. Simple but effective. Ah! Peace at last!


Alone, in silence, at a certain time of night,

Listening, and looking up from what I'm trying to write

I hear a local train along the Valley. And "There

Goes the one-fifty," think I to myself; aware

That somehow its habitual travelling comforts me,

Making my world seem safer, hemelier, sure to be

The same to-morrow; and the same, one hopes, next year.

"There's peacetime in that train," One hears it disappear

With needless warning whistle and rail-resounding wheels.

"That train's quite like an old familiar friend," one feels.






Phil.

Homelier . Touch of vowel trouble. Sorry.


Phil.

THE CHILDREN

( "The Honours of War" - A Diversity of Creatures )

These were our children who died for our lands: they were dear in our sight.
We have only the memory left of their home-treasured sayings and laughter.
The price of our loss shall be paid to our hands, not another's hereafter.
Neither the Alien nor Priest shall decide it. That is our right.
But who shall return us the children?

At the hour the Barbarian chose to disclose his pretences,
And raged against Man, they engaged, on the breasts that they bared for us,
The first felon-stroke of the sword he had long-time prepared for us,
Their bodies were all our defence while we wrought our defences.

They bought us anew with their blood, forbearing to blame us,
Those hours which we had not made good when the Judgement o'ercame us.

They believed us and perished for it. Our statecraft, our learning Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour -Not since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her.

Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them.
The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption:
Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption,
Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marvelling, closed on them.

That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given
To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven -
By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled on the wires -
To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes - to be cindered by fires -
To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation
From crater to crater. For this we shall take expiation.
But who shall return us our children?

Rudyard Kipling.

Wonderful, Marina - Kipling's grief and guilt, so evident in this piece (which I've never read before, so thanks), always brings a tear to my eye. And when I think of those other words of his, "If they ask you why they died, tell them that their fathers lied" I can palpably feel his terrible anguish. Such a sad outcome for a great writer!


Cheers-salesie.

Glad you liked it, Salesie. You're right - it';s full of raw grief and guilt. Great poem.
Marina

Alan Seeger's Rendezvous with Death. Cheers, Bill