Sunday WW1 Remembered...

Continuing my Spring Inspired WW1 Poetry 

A Girl's Song by Katharine Tynan

The Meuse and Marne have little waves;

The slender poplars o'er them lean.

One day they will forget the graves

That give the grass its living green.

Some brown French girl the rose will wear

That springs above his comely head;

Will twine it in her russet hair,

Nor wonder why it is so red.

His blood is in the rose's veins,

His hair is in the yellow corn.

My grief is in the weeping rains

And in the keening wind forlorn.

Flow softly, softly, Marne and Meuse;

Tread lightly all ye browsing sheep;

Fall tenderly, O silver dews,

For here my dear Love lies asleep.

The earth is on his sealèd eyes,

The beauty marred that was my pride;

Would I were lying where he lies,

And sleeping sweetly by his side!

The Spring will come by Meuse and Marne,

The birds be blithesome in the tree.

I heap the stones to make his cairn

Where many sleep as sound as he.

Katharine Tynan (18861-1931) was an Irish  writer and poet.

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Sunday WW1 Remembered..

Inspirational Women of the First World War

Katharine Tynan

1859 - 1931

Katharine Tynan was born into a farming family in Clondalkin, County Dublin, and was educated at St. Catherine's school in Drogheda. She began writing at seventeen and had her poetry first published in a Dublin paper in 1878.

She went on to play a major part in the literary groups around Dublin until her marriage in 1898 to English barrister Henry Albert Hinkson. Thereafter, Tynan would sometimes write under the name Katharine Tynan Hinkson.

Later she lived at Claremorris, County Mayo when her husband was a magistrate there from 1914 until 1919. During the war she did some philanthropic works and a little nursing.

For a while, Tynan was a close associate of poet and writer, William Butler Yeats and later a correspondent of the poet, Francis Ledwidge. She is said to have written over 100 novels. Her Collected Poems appeared in 1930; she also wrote five autobiographical volumes.

The Broken Soldier

The broken soldier sings and whistles day to dark;

    He's but the remnant of a man, maimed and half-blind,

But the soul they could not harm goes singing like the lark,

    Like the incarnate Joy that will not be confined.

The Lady at the Hall has given him a light task,

    He works in the gardens as busy as a bee;

One hand is but a stump and his face a pitted mask;

    The gay soul goes singing like a bird set free.

Whistling and singing like a linnet on wings;

    The others stop to listen, leaning on the spade,

Whole men and comely, they fret at little things.

    The soul of him's singing like a thrush in a glade.

Hither and thither, hopping, like Robin on the grass,

    The soul in the broken man is beautiful and brave;

And while he weeds the pansies and the bright hours pass

    The bird caught in the cage whistles its joyous stave.

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Sunday War Poet...

The theme for this months poetry

 is

The Soldier









The Broken Soldier

by

Katharine Tynan

The broken soldier sings and whistles day to dark;

    He's but the remnant of a man, maimed and half-blind,

But the soul they could not harm goes singing like the lark,

    Like the incarnate Joy that will not be confined.

The Lady at the Hall has given him a light task,

    He works in the gardens as busy as a bee;

One hand is but a stump and his face a pitted mask;

    The gay soul goes singing like a bird set free.

Whistling and singing like a linnet on wings;

    The others stop to listen, leaning on the spade,

Whole men and comely, they fret at little things.

    The soul of him's singing like a thrush in a glade.

Hither and thither, hopping, like Robin on the grass,

    The soul in the broken man is beautiful and brave;

And while he weeds the pansies and the bright hours pass

    The bird caught in the cage whistles its joyous stave.

Katharine Tynan 1861 - 1931

Born in Dublin, she was a poet and a writer. She was a leading member of the Celtic literary revival and a contemporary of W B Yeats,and the Rossettis.

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