Sunday WW1 Remembered ...

A Sampling of War Poets

1915

Edward Thomas

1898 - 1917

Home

Fair was the morning, fair our tempers, and

We had seen nothing fairer than that land,

Though strange, and the untrodden snow that made

Wild of the tame, casting out all that was

Not wild and rustic and old; and we were glad.

Fair, too, was afternoon, and first to pass

Were we that league of snow, next the north wind.

There was nothing to return for, except need,

And yet we sang nor ever stopped for speed,

As we did often with the start behind.

Faster still strode we when we came in sight

Of the cold roofs where we must spend the night.

Happy we had not been there, nor could be.

Though we had tasted sleep and food and fellowship

Together long. 

“How quick” to someone's lip

The words came, “will the beaten horse run home.”

The word “home” raised a smile in us all three,

And one repeated it, smiling just so

That all knew what he meant and none would say.

Between three counties far apart that lay

We were divided and looked strangely each

At the other, and we knew we were not friends

But fellows in a union that ends

With the necessity for it, as it ought. 

Never a word was spoken, not a thought

Was thought, of what the look meant with the word

“Home” as we walked and watched the sunset blurred.

And then to me the word, only the word,

“Homesick,” as it were playfully occurred:

No more. If I should ever more admit

Than the mere word I could not endure it

For a day longer: this captivity

Must somehow come to an end, else I should be

Another man, as often now I seem,

Or this life be only an evil dream.

Phillip Edward Thomas was an Anglo-Welsh poet. Although few of his poems deal directly with war, he is considered to be a war poet.

He enlisted in the army in 1915, and was killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917, soon after he arrived in France.

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Sunday War poet...

The theme for this month's WW1 war poems

is

 LOVE



I think this poem, written by Edward Thomas for his wife Helen is a fitting tribute

for  Valentine's Weekend.

And you, Helen

And you, Helen, what should I give you?

So many things I would give you

Had I an infinite great store

Offered me and I stood before

To choose. I would give you youth,

All kinds of loveliness and truth,

A clear eye as good as mine,

Lands, waters, flowers, wine,

As many children as your heart

Might wish for, a far better art

Than mine can be, all you have lost

Upon the travelling waters tossed,

Or given to me. If I could choose

Freely in that great treasure-house

Anything from any shelf,

I would give you back yourself,

And power to discriminate

What you want and want it not too late,

Many fair days free from care

And heart to enjoy both foul and fair,

And myself, too, if I could find

Where it lay hidden and it proved kind. 

Phillip Edward Thomas 

(1878  - 1917)

Was an Anglo-Welsh writer of prose and poetry. He is commonly considered a war poet, although few of his poems deal directly with his war experiences. Already an accomplished writer, Thomas turned to poetry only in 1914.

He enlisted in the army in 1915, and was killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917, soon after he arrived in France.

Sunday War Poet ~ Author's Choice ~ Elisabeth Gifford

Continuing my Sunday theme on the poets of the Great War

I am delighted to welcome

Author

Elisabeth Gifford

Sharing her choice of WW1 poem

Adlestrop ~ Edward Thomas 

Yes. I remember Adlestrop—

The name, because one afternoon

Of heat the express-train drew up there

Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.

No one left and no one came

On the bare platform. What I saw

Was Adlestrop—only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,

And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,

No whit less still and lonely fair

Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang

Close by, and round him, mistier,

Farther and farther, all the birds

Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

This poem does not mention the war, but rather sums up all that is precious to those who went to fight. Edward Thomas loved the English countryside and this moment is taken from a rare stop during a train journey to stay in a cottage with his family for the summer, a fleeting glimpse of something beautiful and passing. Soon the great steam engine will grind into motion and propel them away into a future they cannot prevent. It’s a moment that is even the more precious as it is now being seen as a distant memory. The day is now gone, the place only a name, and yet it remains as something precious and enduring in the poet’s mind. It feels as though this might be part of a conversation held by soldiers waiting in their bell tents somewhere in France and reminiscing about England.

Thomas joined up late in the war and, as his wife feared, he did not survive. In this poem, he seems to both understand what will be lost to him if he dies, and also why he was willing to fight and to defend a way of life he held so dear.

One of the impulses in writing my recent novel, Return to Fourwinds, was to show the continuing damage that many returning soldiers endured as they began their lives after the Great War. Using family anecdotes, I attempted to recreate the life of a Manchester soldier who has been gassed in World War One and so is unfit for physical work, the result being that his family struggle to make ends meet. You can read the extract here.

http://www.elisabethgifford.com/blog/

 

UK and US edition

2013/2014

2014

My thanks to Elisabeth for sharing her thoughts about Adlestrop and for her insightful explanation into why Adlestrop is important to her.

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Sunday War Poet...

Edward Thomas 

1878 -1917

For These

An acre of land between the shore and the hills,

Upon a ledge that shows my kingdoms three,

The lovely visible earth and sky and sea

Where what the curlew needs not, the farmer tills:

A house that shall love me as I love it,

Well-hedged, and honoured by a few ash trees

That linnets, greenfinches, and goldfinches

Shall often visit and make love in and flit:

A garden I need never go beyond,

Broken but neat, whose sunflowers every one

Are fit to be the sign of the Rising Sun:

A spring, a brook's bend, or at least a pond:

For these I ask not, but, neither too late

Nor yet too early, for what men call content,

And also that something may be sent

To be contented with, I ask of Fate.

Phillip Edward Thomas was an Anglo-Welsh poet. Although few of his poems deal directly with war, he is considered to be a war poet.
He enlisted in the army in 1915, and was killed in action during the Battle of Arras in 1917, soon after he arrived in France.


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