Need help with a few literary quotes

[EvgenyS]

I’m finishing the translation of G.S. Atkinson’s “Soldier’s Diary” and need help with identidying a few quotes. I identified most of the literary quotes in the book, but not all of them. Probably someone can help.

 

“Several fellows posted to companies to-day, so that it looks as if we shall soon be over the wall that Haig spoke about and with our backs to it again” [Could someone help with a quote of Haig mentioning ‘the wall’?]

 

Oh! ye women of England, could you but see your heroes now— " Singing songs of blasphemy, At whist with naked whores ! "

[I can’t find from where this quote is, or is it an allusion to something in the Bible, or?]

 

My body crawls with lice, my rags are saturated with blood, and we all "stink like the essence of putrefaction rotting for the third time" 

[I could not find the source of this quote/allusion]

 

For of these how many know, Or, how many knowing, care

Of the things that bought them this In the mud fields over there.

[I could not find this poem]

 

" the soft, lasceevious stars leer from the velvet skies."

[same]

 

 

[Dai Bach y Sowldiwr]

"With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause each one of us must fight on to the end."

 - Sir Douglas Haig. Special Order of the Day, 11 April 1918. Issued and addressed to all ranks of the British Army in France and Flanders

Edited 15 September , 2023 by Dai Bach y Sowldiwr

[EvgenyS]

Ralph Scott is the pen name of G.S. Atkinson.

[knittinganddeath]

If you search for "lascivious stars" on the British Newspaper Archive, you will get a hit from a review of the book that contain that line. It was published in November 1896. Unfortunately the free extract does not mention the author's name.

 

 

[EvgenyS]

Thank you, I will have at least something to include in the footnote.

[Moonraker]

I may be missing something here, but Googling the quotes produced these:

"Oh ye women ..."

"My body crawls with lice ..." (different link to the same book)

"lasceevious stars ..."  Clue: "McAndrew’s Scots version"??  Actually a Kipling poem. (Googling also led me to this 1909 publication, though I can't see the precise reference.)

Edited 19 September , 2023 by Moonraker

[EvgenyS]

You certainly do with the first two lines - the links you provided are from the book that I asked about. The author quoted these in the book and I was looking for the source, while you search landed on the book itself where the quote was used, not on a yet unknown source.

[Moonraker]

Sorry! I was confused that you refer to the author as G S Atkinson, whereas the webpages to which I linked gave him as Ralph Scott, which I now discover is a pseudonym!

[EvgenyS]

Thank you for the third reference! I tried a different spelling for that word too, but did not come across that verse by Kipling. The author quotes him a few times in the diary, so this is quite logical that it's him again here.

[seaJane]

The third reference is somewhere in Kipling's The Seven Seas, but I can't get archive.org to display texts properly right now; should be able to track the line down later.

[seaJane]

Stop press: https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_mcandrew.htm

An online (Kindle) edition of The Seven Seas is available free on Amazon UK, but the formatting is dreadful. 

 

 

Edited 8 October , 2023 by seaJane

[EvgenyS]

Thank you, I already found it (McAndrew's)