Sunday WW1 Remembered...

As we move ever slowly towards to the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918, I am reminded of this post I shared in 2015, about Moina Michael who was so inspired by the poem In Flanders Fields by Colonel John McCrae that she made a personal pledge to 'keep the faith'. She felt compelled to make a note of this pledge and hastily scribbled down a response entitled “We Shall Keep the Faith” on the back of a used envelope. From that day she vowed to wear a red poppy of Flanders Fields as a sign of remembrance. 

We Shall Keep the Faith

Oh ! You who sleep in Flanders Fields,

Sleep sweet - to rise anew!

We caught the torch you threw

And holding high, we keep the Faith

With All who died.

We cherish, too, the poppy red

That grows on fields where valor led;

It seems to signal to the skies

That blood of heroes never dies,

But lends a lustre to the red

Of the flower that blooms above the dead

In Flanders Fields.

And now the Torch and Poppy Red

We wear in honor of our dead.

Fear not that ye have died for naught;

We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought

In Flanders Fields

She went on to use the idea of the delicate poppy flower to raise funds for ex-servicemen returning from the First World War.

Moina's fascinating autobiography, "The Miracle Flower, The Story of the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy” was published in 1941. Moina dedicates the book to the late Colonel John McCrae, whose poem ‘In Flanders Fields’ was the inspiration for her idea of the Flanders Fields Memorial Poppy. 

As a result of Moina Michael's tireless campaigning, her complete dedication to the cause and the inspiration her idea gave to others, the delicate flower of the red field poppy has become an internationally-recognized symbol of Remembrance and welfare for war veterans.

****

For those who like fictional novels set during WW1, I can recommend the historical novel I featured on the blog yesterday. You can find my review of The Poppy Field by Deborah Carr by following this link.

It's currently just 99p Amazon Kindle 

Harper Impulse
12 October 2018

Sunday WW1 Remembered..

A Sampling of War Poets

1918

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

1850 -1919

War Mothers

There is something in the sound of drum and fife

That stirs all the savage instincts into life.

In the old times of peace we went our ways,

Through proper days

Of little joys and tasks. Lonely at times,

When from the steeple sounded wedding chimes,

Telling to all the world some maid was wife—

But taking patiently our part in life

As it was portioned us by Church and State,

Believing it our fate.

Our thoughts all chaste

Held yet a secret wish to love and mate

Ere youth and virtue should go quite to waste.

But men we criticised for lack of strength,

And kept them at arm's length.

Then the war came—

The world was all aflame!

The men we had thought dull and void of power

Were heroes in an hour.

He who had seemed a slave to petty greed

Showed masterful in that great time of need.

He who had plotted for his neighbour's pelf,

Now for his fellows offers up himself.

And we were only women, forced by war

To sacrifice the things worth living for.

Something within us broke,

Something within us woke,

The wild cave-woman spoke.

When we heard the sound of drumming,

As our soldiers went to camp,

Heard them tramp, tramp, tramp;

As we watched to see them coming,

And they looked at us and smiled

(Yes, looked back at us and smiled),

As they filed along by hillock and by hollow,

Then our hearts were so beguiled

That, for many and many a day,

We dreamed we heard them say,

'Oh, follow, follow, follow!'

And the distant, rolling drum

Called us 'Come, come, come!'

Till our virtue seemed a thing to give away.

War had swept ten thousand years away from earth.

We were primal once again.

There were males, not modern men;

We were females meant to bring their sons to birth.

And we could not wait for any formal rite,

We could hear them calling to us, 'Come to-night;

For to-morrow, at the dawn,

We move on!'

And the drum

Bellowed, 'Come, come, come!'

And the fife

Whistled, 'Life, life, life!'

So they moved on and fought and bled and died;

Honoured and mourned, they are the nation's pride.

We fought our battles, too, but with the tide

Of our red blood, we gave the world new lives.

Because we were not wives

We are dishonoured. Is it noble, then,

To break God's laws only by killing men

To save one's country from destruction?

We took no man's life but gave our chastity,

And sinned the ancient sin

To plant young trees and fill felled forests in.

Oh, clergy of the land,

Bible in hand,

All reverently you stand,

On holy thoughts intent

While barren wives receive the sacrament!

Had you the open visions you could see

Phantoms of infants murdered in the womb,

Who never knew a cradle or a tomb,

Hovering about these wives accusingly.

Bestow the sacrament! Their sins are not well known—

Ours to the four winds of the earth are blown.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox was born in Johnstown, Wisconsin and her poetry was being published by the time she graduated from high school. Her poetry was very popular, generally written in plain, rhyming verse.

(Source: Poetry Foundation.org )

~****~

Sunday WW1 Remembered..

A Sampling of War Poets

1917

Mary Borden

(1886-1968)

At The Somme: The Song of Mud

This is the song of the mud, 

The pale yellow glistening mud that covers the hills like satin; 

The grey gleaming silvery mud that is spread like enamel over the valleys; 

The frothing, squirting, spurting, liquid mud that gurgles along the road beds; 

The thick elastic mud that is kneaded and pounded and squeezed under the hoofs of the horses; 

The invincible, inexhaustible mud of the war zone. 

This is the song of the mud, the uniform of the poilu. 

His coat is of mud, his great dragging flapping coat, that is too big for him and too heavy; 

His coat that once was blue and now is grey and stiff with the mud that cakes to it. 

This is the mud that clothes him. His trousers and boots are of mud, 

And his skin is of mud; 

And there is mud in his beard. 

His head is crowned with a helmet of mud. 

He wears it well. 

He wears it as a king wears the ermine that bores him. 

He has set a new style in clothing; 

He has introduced the chic of mud. 

This is the song of the mud that wriggles its way into battle. 

The impertinent, the intrusive, the ubiquitous, the unwelcome, 

The slimy inveterate nuisance, 

That fills the trenches, 

That mixes in with the food of the soldiers, 

That spoils the working of motors and crawls into their secret parts, 

That spreads itself over the guns, 

That sucks the guns down and holds them fast in its slimy voluminous lips, 

That has no respect for destruction and muzzles the bursting shells; 

And slowly, softly, easily, 

Soaks up the fire, the noise; soaks up the energy and the courage; 

Soaks up the power of armies; 

Soaks up the battle. 

Just soaks it up and thus stops it. 

This is the hymn of mud-the obscene, the filthy, the putrid, 

The vast liquid grave of our armies. It has drowned our men. 

Its monstrous distended belly reeks with the undigested dead. 

Our men have gone into it, sinking slowly, and struggling and slowly disappearing. 

Our fine men, our brave, strong, young men; 

Our glowing red, shouting, brawny men. 

Slowly, inch by inch, they have gone down into it, 

Into its darkness, its thickness, its silence. 

Slowly, irresistibly, it drew them down, sucked them down, 

And they were drowned in thick, bitter, heaving mud. 

Now it hides them, Oh, so many of them! 

Under its smooth glistening surface it is hiding them blandly. 

There is not a trace of them. 

There is no mark where they went down.

The mute enormous mouth of the mud has closed over them.

This is the song of the mud,

The beautiful glistening golden mud that covers the hills like satin; 

The mysterious gleaming silvery mud that is spread like enamel over the valleys. 

Mud, the disguise of the war zone; 

Mud, the mantle of battles; 

Mud, the smooth fluid grave of our soldiers: 

This is the song of the mud.

American writer Mary Borden was born in Chicago in 1886 and earned a BA from Vassar College in 1907. One year later, she married George Douglas Turner, a British army general and member of Parliament, and they lived in England. She served as a director of French field hospitals in both World Wars, for which she received military medals for bravery.

(Source poetry foundation.org)

~****~

Sunday WW1 Remembered..

A Sampling of War Poets

1916



Arthur Graeme West

1891- 1917

The Night Patrol

France, March 1916.

Over the top! The wire’s thin here, unbarbed

Plain rusty coils, not staked, and low enough:

Full of old tins, though—“When you’re through, all three,

Aim quarter left for fifty yards or so,

Then straight for that new piece of German wire;

See if it’s thick, and listen for a while

For sounds of working; don’t run any risks;

About an hour; now, over!”

And we placed

Our hands on the topmost sand-bags, leapt, and stood

A second with curved backs, then crept to the wire,

Wormed ourselves tinkling through, glanced back, and dropped.

The sodden ground was splashed with shallow pools,

And tufts of crackling cornstalks, two years old,

No man had reaped, and patches of spring grass.

Half-seen, as rose and sank the flares, were strewn

The wrecks of our attack: the bandoliers,

Packs, rifles, bayonets, belts, and haversacks,

Shell fragments, and the huge whole forms of shells

Shot fruitlessly—and everywhere the dead.

Only the dead were always present—present

As a vile sickly smell of rottenness;

The rustling stubble and the early grass,

The slimy pools — the dead men stank through all,

Pungent and sharp; as bodies loomed before,

And as we passed, they stank: then dulled away

To that vague fœtor, all encompassing,

Infecting earth and air. They lay, all clothed,

Each in some new and piteous attitude

That we well marked to guide us back: as he,

Outside our wire, that lay on his back and crossed

His legs Crusader-wise: I smiled at that,

And thought on Elia and his Temple Church.

From him, at quarter left, lay a small corpse,

Down in a hollow, huddled as in a bed,

That one of us put his hand on unawares.

Next was a bunch of half a dozen men

All blown to bits, an archipelago

Of corrupt fragments, vexing to us three,

Who had no light to see by, save the flares.

On such a trail, so light, for ninety yards

We crawled on belly and elbows, till we saw,

Instead of lumpish dead before our eyes,

The stakes and crosslines of the German wire.

We lay in shelter of the last dead man,

Ourselves as dead, and heard their shovels ring

Turning the earth, then talk and cough at times.

A sentry fired and a machine-gun spat;

They shot a glare above us, when it fell

And spluttered out in the pools of No Man’s Land,

We turned and crawled past the remembered dead:

Past him and him, and them and him, until,

For he lay some way apart, we caught the scent

Of the Crusader and slide past his legs,

And through the wire and home, and got our rum.

Arthur Graeme West was a British writer and war poet. West was born in Eaton, Norfolk, educated at Highgate School, then Blundell's School and Balliol College, Oxford.

He enlisted as a private in the Public Schools Battalion in January 1915. In August 1916 he was a second lieutenant in the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. In 1917 he was killed, near the town of Baupame, by a sniper's bullet.

~****~

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.

~****~

Sunday WW1 Remembered..

A Sampling of War Poets

1914

Thomas Hardy

1840 - 1928

Men Who March Away
(Song of the Soldiers)

What of the faith and fire within us

Men who march away

Ere the barn-cocks say

Night is growing gray,

Leaving all that here can win us;

What of the faith and fire within us

Men who march away?

Is it a purblind prank, O think you,

Friend with the musing eye,

Who watch us stepping by

With doubt and dolorous sigh?

Can much pondering so hoodwink you!

Is it a purblind prank, O think you,

Friend with the musing eye?

Nay. We well see what we are doing,

Though some may not see—

Dalliers as they be—

England's need are we;

Her distress would leave us rueing:

Nay. We well see what we are doing,

Though some may not see!

In our heart of hearts believing

Victory crowns the just,

And that braggarts must

Surely bite the dust,

Press we to the field ungrieving,

In our heart of hearts believing

Victory crowns the just.

Hence the faith and fire within us

Men who march away

Ere the barn-cocks say

Night is growing gray,

Leaving all that here can win us;

Hence the faith and fire within us

Men who march away.

September 5, 1914.

Although known for his Wessex inspired classic fiction, Thomas Hardy considered himself to be a poet and is now considered to be one of the greatest twentieth century poets.

Men Who March Away was written in September 1914 at the very start of the Great War when English optimism was running high and the war was fully expected to be over 'by Christmas'.

Hardy was no stranger to war poetry and had penned several during the earlier Boer War - he took a pragmatic approach to conflict and Men Who March Away is seen as a rallying cry.

~****~

Sunday WW1 Remembered..

Ordinary Lives of the First World War

Mothering

The Mother

by

May Herschel-Clarke

1850-1950

If I should die, think only this of me:

That there’s some corner of a foreign field

That is for ever England.

If you should die, think only this of me

In that still quietness where is space for thought,

Where parting, loss and bloodshed shall not be,

And men may rest themselves and dream of nought:

That in some place a mystic mile away

One whom you loved has drained the bitter cup

Till there is nought to drink; has faced the day

Once more, and now, has raised the standard up.

And think, my son, with eyes grown clear and dry

She lives as though for ever in your sight,

Loving the things you loved, with heart aglow

For country, honour, truth, traditions high,

--Proud that you paid their price.

(And if some night Her heart should break--well, lad, you will not know)

May Hershel Clarke was an English poet better known for her anti-war poems.
The Mother was published in 1919 in direct response to  Rupert Brookes very famous sonnet
The Soldier.

For Mothers today and every day

for

they are always our sons and daughters.

Sunday WW1 Remembered..

This week, on the 6th February, it was a 100 years since The Representation of the People Act which gave women over thirty and men over 21 the vote.

 And whilst it didn't go very far, it did, however, allow a glimmer of hope to those brave women who had long been campaigning for Votes for Women.

And so I started to think about all those women who kept the country functioning during the long years of WW1, and this 1917 poem by war poet, Jessie Pope speaks eloquently about their public service contribution.

War Girls

There's the girl who clips your ticket for the train,

  And the girl who speeds the lift from floor to floor,

There's the girl who does a milk-round in the rain,

  And the girl who calls for orders at your door.

      Strong, sensible, and fit,

      They're out to show their grit,

    And tackle jobs with energy and knack.

      No longer caged and penned up,

      They're going to keep their end up

    Till the khaki soldier boys come marching back.

There's the motor girl who drives a heavy van,

  There's the butcher girl who brings your joint of meat,

There's the girl who cries 'All fares, please!' like a man,

  And the girl who whistles taxis up the street.

      Beneath each uniform

      Beats a heart that's soft and warm,

    Though of canny mother-wit they show no lack;

      But a solemn statement this is,

      They've no time for love and kisses

    Till the khaki soldier-boys come marching back.

**

The Women's Work in the War Production 1914-1918

A female switchboard cleaner of the tramways department of the Corporation of Glasgow (now Glasgow City Council). Two such women were employed by the department, starting in November 1915. They worked forty-five hours per week and earned 25 shillings per week, including a bonus.

Women taking up the challenge of public service work during 1914-1918 allowed more men to go to war.

© IWM (Q 110155)

A female worker operating a slugging machine at the boot manufacture of J. Rawson and Sons Limited in Leicester.

© IWM (Q 109965)

Source IWM  archive collection.

~****~

Sunday WW1 Remembered...

Ordinary Lives of the First World War

One of my favourite WW1 poems is My Boy Jack by Rudyard Kipling and over Christmas I had the opportunity to watch the film version of My Boy Jack, starring David Haig and Daniel Radcliffe, which highlights Rudyard Kipling's search for his missing son - eighteen year old Jack Kipling was missing, presumed killed during the Battle of Loos in September, 1915.

John Kipling was born in Sussex 1897, the youngest of the three children born to Rudyard Kipling and his American wife, Caroline Starr Balestier. John, known as Jack, was educated at Wellington College, Berkshire.

Jack was sixteen when war broke out in 1914, and carried along by the fervour of his father who was a staunch supporter of the war, Jack, tried to enlist as soon as he was old enough, but he was unfortunately turned down by both the navy and the army due to his very poor eyesight.

However, Rudyard Kipling was keen for his son to see active service and using his considerable influence, he was able to persuade, Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts, a former Commander-in-Chief of the British Army, and Colonel of the Irish Guards to bypass this disability and Jack was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the 2nd Battalion, Irish Guards on 15 August 1914, having just turned 17.

After his initial training. Jack Kipling was sent to France in August 1914 and was reported as missing in September 1915, during the Battle of Loos. His body was never found and although he is officially listed as buried in St Mary's ADS Cemetery in Haisnes, there is still doubt as to whether this is indeed his final resting place.

Rudyard Kipling never recovered from the lost of his son and following this devastating tragedy his attitude towards the war changed. This poem to his missing son was also a tribute to the many other young men lost during the war -

The Children 

1914-18 

("The Honours of War"—A Diversity of Creatures) 

These were our children who died for our lands: they were dear in our sight. 

We have only the memory left of their home-treasured sayings and laughter. 

The price of our loss shall be paid to our hands, not another’s hereafter. 

Neither the Alien nor Priest shall decide on it. That is our right. 

But who shall return us the children? 

At the hour the Barbarian chose to disclose his pretences, 

And raged against Man, they engaged, on the breasts that they bared for us, 

The first felon-stroke of the sword he had long-time prepared for us— 

Their bodies were all our defence while we wrought our defences. 

They bought us anew with their blood, forbearing to blame us, 

Those hours which we had not made good when the Judgment o’ercame us. 

They believed us and perished for it. Our statecraft, our learning 

Delivered them bound to the Pit and alive to the burning 

Whither they mirthfully hastened as jostling for honour— 

Nor since her birth has our Earth seen such worth loosed upon her. 

Nor was their agony brief, or once only imposed on them. 

The wounded, the war-spent, the sick received no exemption: 

Being cured they returned and endured and achieved our redemption, 

Hopeless themselves of relief, till Death, marveling, closed on them. 

That flesh we had nursed from the first in all cleanness was given 

To corruption unveiled and assailed by the malice of Heaven— 

By the heart-shaking jests of Decay where it lolled in the wires— 

To be blanched or gay-painted by fumes— to be cindered by fires— 

To be senselessly tossed and retossed in stale mutilation 

From crater to crater. For that we shall take expiation. 

But who shall return us our children? 

Kipling's poignant poem My Boy Jack was in fact written following the death of 16 year old sailor Jack Cornwell, but it is also a poignant reminder of the loss of his own boy, Jack.

"HAVE you news of my boy Jack? "

Not this tide.

"When d'you think that he'll come back?"

Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Has any one else had word of him?"

Not this tide.

For what is sunk will hardly swim,

Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"

None this tide,

Nor any tide,

Except he did not shame his kind---

Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,

This tide,

And every tide;

Because he was the son you bore,

And gave to that wind blowing and that tide.

~****~

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.

~****~

Christmas Sunday WW1 Remembered...

A Christmas Prayer

(From the Trenches)

by 

Cyril Winterbotham

1887- 1916

Not yet for us may Christmas bring

Good-will to men, and peace;

In our dark sky no angels sing,

Not yet the great release

For men, when war shall cease.

So must the guns our carols make,

Our gifts must bullets be,

For us no Christmas bells shall wake;

These ruined homes shall see

No Christmas revelry.

In hardened hearts we fain would greet

The Babe at Christmas born,

But lo, He comes with pierced feet,

Wearing a crown of thorn,-

His side a spear has torn.

For tired eyes are all too dim,

Our hearts too full of pain,

Our ears too deaf to hear the hymn

Which angels sing in vain,

"The Christ is born again."

O Jesus, pitiful, draw near,

That even we may see

The Little Child who knew not fear;

Thus would we picture Thee

Unmarred by agony.

O'er death and pain triumphant yet

Bid Thou Thy harpers play,

That we may hear them, and forget

Sorrow and all dismay,

And welcome Thee to stay

With us on Christmas Day.

Cyril Winterbotham was a Lieutenant in the 1/5th Battalion Gloucester Regiment.

He was killed in  August 1916 and is listed on the Thiepval memorial.

Jaffareadstoo wishes you a peaceful and loving Christmas

Sunday WW1 Remembered...

The Fallen

by

Diana Gurney

Shall we not lay our holly wreath

Here at the foot of this high cross?

We do not know, perhaps a breath

Of our remembering may come

To them at last where they are sleeping,

They are quiet, they are dumb,

No more of mirth, no more of weeping,

Silent Christmas they are keeping;

Ours the sorrow, ours the loss.




There are few references about Diana Gurney other than she is recognised as one of the 
WW1 War Poets.

Her book of poems The Poppied Dream was published in 1921

Sunday WW1 Remembered..

Poems written in 1917

Servitude

by

Ivor Gurney

If it were not for England, who would bear

This heavy servitude one moment more?

To keep a brothel, sweep and wash the floor

Of filthiest hovels were noble to compare

With this brass-cleaning life. Now here, now there

Harried in foolishness, scanned curiously o'er

By fools made brazen by conceit, and store

Of antique witticisms thin and bare.

Only the love of comrades sweetens all,

Whose laughing spirit will not be outdone.

As night-watching men wait for the sun

To hearten them, so wait I on such boys

As neither brass nor Hell-fire may appal,

Nor guns, nor sergeant-major's bluster and noise.

1917

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.



~****~

Sunday WW1 Remembered...

Poems written in 1917

The Dead Kings

by

Francis Ledwidge

All the dead kings came to me

At Rosnaree, where I was dreaming,

A few stars glimmered through the morn,

And down the thorn the dews were streaming.

And every dead king had a story

Of ancient glory, sweetly told.

It was too early for the lark,

But the starry dark had tints of gold.

I listened to the sorrows three

Of that Eire passed into song.

A cock crowed near a hazel croft,

And up aloft dim larks winged strong.

And I, too, told the kings a story

Of later glory, her fourth sorrow:

There was a sound like moving shields

In high green fields and the lowland furrow.

And one said: ‘We who yet are kings

Have heard these things lamenting inly.’

Sweet music flowed from many a bill

And on the hill the morn stood queenly.

And one said: ‘Over is the singing,

And bell bough ringing, whence we come;

With heavy hearts we’ll tread the shadows,

In honey meadows birds are dumb.’

And one said: ‘Since the poets perished

And all they cherished in the way,

Their thoughts unsung, like petal showers

Inflame the hours of blue and grey.’

And one said: ‘A loud tramp of men

We’ll hear again at Rosnaree.’

A bomb burst near me where I lay.

I woke, ’twas day in Picardy.

1917

Francis Edward Ledwidge was an Irish war poet from County Meath in Ireland.

 Sometimes known as the "poet of the blackbirds".

He was killed in action at the Battle of Paschendaele in 1917.



~****~