Sunday WW1 Remembered...

As 1918 dawned and the Great War entered another phase I wonder what was going through the minds of those who were still fighting and of those who waited at home for their safe return.

Dawn on the Somme

by

 Robert Nichols

Last night rain fell over the scarred plateau 

And now from the dark horizon, dazzling, flies 

Arrow on fire-plumed arrow to the skies 

Shot from the bright arc of Apollo's bow; 

And from the wild and writhen waste below,

From flashing pools and mounds lit one by one,

O is it mist or are these companies 

Of morning heroes who arise, arise 

With thrusting arms, with limbs and hair aglow 

Toward the risen god, upon whose brow

Burns the gold laurel of all victories, 

Hero and hero's god, th' invincible Sun?

Robert Nichols (1893-1944) was a playwright and poet. Born into a wealthy Essex family, he was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Oxford. At the outbreak of World War I, he left Oxford to serve as a second lieutenant in the Royal Field artillery. However, after suffering from shell shock in 1916, he served only a short time in France before he was invalided out of the army. And although his active service was short, he is still recognised as one of the earliest soldier poets of World War I.

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Sunday War Poet...

Robert Malise Bowyer Nichols
1893- 1944

Noon

It is midday; the deep trench glares….

A buzz and blaze of flies….

The hot wind puffs the giddy airs….

The great sun rakes the skies.

No sound in all the stagnant trench

Where forty standing men

Endure the sweat and grit and stench,

Like cattle in a pen.

Sometimes a sniper's bullet whirs

Or twangs the whining wire,

Sometimes a soldier sighs and stirs

As in hell's frying fire.

From out a high, cool cloud descends

An aeroplane's far moan,

The sun strikes down, the thin cloud rends….

The black speck travels on.

And sweating, dazed, isolate

In the hot trench beneath,

We bide the next shrewd move of fate

Be it of life or death.

Robert Nichols was an English writer, poet and playwright.

He was educated Winchester and Oxford. He was in the trenches for only a few weeks before being invalided out with shell-shock in 1915, never to return.

 He worked for Ministries of Labour and Information.


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