Sunday War Poet ...

Ivor Bertie Gurney

1890 - 1937

To His Love

He's gone, and all our plans

   Are useless indeed.

We'll walk no more on Cotswold

   Where the sheep feed

   Quietly and take no heed.

His body that was so quick

   Is not as you

Knew it, on Severn river

   Under the blue

   Driving our small boat through.

You would not know him now ...

   But still he died

Nobly, so cover him over

   With violets of pride

   Purple from Severn side.

Cover him, cover him soon!

   And with thick-set

Masses of memoried flowers—

   Hide that red wet

   Thing I must somehow forget.

Ivor Gurney was a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. At the outbreak of war he volunteered as a private in the Gloucestershire regiment but was initially turned down because of poor eyesight. 

 He joined the 2nd and 5th Gloucestershire regiment in 1915.

 He was wounded and gassed in 1917 while serving in France.

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