Great War Poetry

[marina]

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.

[regtcollector]

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.

[General Melchett]

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.

[marina]

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

[apwright]

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.

[Dickie]

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!!!)

[Katie Elizabeth Stewart]

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.

[larneman]

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/

[the gunners dream]

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

[marina]

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.

[bobpike]

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.

.

[bobpike]

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…

[marina]

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

[bobpike]

Marina,

Australia's finest war-poet, Leon Gellert,

Bob

[marina]

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

Marina

[Borden Battery]

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

[frev]

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.

[marina]

Strong stuff, Frev.

Marina

[alliekiwi]

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

[ceasefire]

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.

[marina]

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

[marina]

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

[MikeS]

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.

[marina]

Nice to see a Tommy's efforts, Mike.

Marina

[larneman]

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.

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