The First World War (1914-18) stimulated a great wave of literary output, not least in the field of poetry. In an era when photography and film were still in their infancy, poems, especially those written by direct participants, were regularly published in newspapers, magazines, and as anthologies, as a means to convey to the public at home what was going on at the front. In this collection, ten poems are presented, which capture a variety of experiences during the conflict, conveying as a whole the brutal realities of war, the crushed aspirations, and the irreversible changes imposed on the lives of those who survived.
All poems are taken from The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry, edited by G. Walter.
Herbert Asquith
Herbert Asquith (1881-1947) was the son of Herbert Henry Asquith, British Prime Minister during the first half of the war. Asquith, educated at Oxford, was commissioned into the Royal Marine Artillery, where he operated anti-aircraft guns. Wounded and sent home in the summer of 1915, Asquith rejoined the war a year later and achieved the rank of captain.
The Volunteer
Here lies a clerk who half his life had spent
Toiling at ledgers in a city grey,
Thinking that so his days would drift away
With no lance broken in life's tournament:
Yet ever 'twixt the books and his bright eyes
The gleaming eagles of the legions came,
And horsemen, charging under phantom skies,
Went thundering past beneath the oriflamme.And now those waiting dreams are satisfied;
From twilight into spacious dawn he went;
His lance is broken; but he lies content
With that high hour, in which he lived and died.
Who found his battle in the last resort;
Nor needs he any hearse to bear him hence,
Who goes to join the men of Agincourt.(154)
Rupert Brooke
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) served in the Royal Navy in Antwerp before transferring to the army and participating in the disastrous Gallipoli Campaign. Educated at the University of Cambridge and having previously travelled in the United States and the South Pacific, Brooke captured the horrors of the Great War in poetry. Having survived trench warfare, Brooke's death was full of ironies: he succumbed to septicaemia caused by a mosquito bite, passing away on a hospital ship in the Aegean. His 1914 The Soldier became forever associated with the war and a fixture in school curricula thereafter.
The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed:
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.(108)
Wilfred Owen
Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) joined the British Army in 1915, suffered shell shock on the Western Front, returned to the fighting, was awarded the Military Cross, and then was killed just one week before the armistice with Germany, aged 25. Owen's poems were published posthumously to much acclaim, and he became one of the most famous of all war poets.
An Anthem for a Doomed Youth
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifle's rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them sad shires.What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.(131)
Edgell Rickword
Edgell Rickword (1898-1982) joined up aged 18 and won the Military Cross in 1917. Rickword's war was ended when he lost an eye and was invalided home; he later enjoyed a prominent career as a political journalist.
War and Peace
In sodden trenches I have heard men speak,
Though numb and wretched, wise and witty things;
And loved them for the stubbornness that clings
Longest t laughter when Death's pulleys creak;And seeing cool nurses move on tireless feet
Top do abominable things with grace,
Deemed them sweet sisters in that haunted place
Where, with child's voices, strong men howl or bleat.Yet now those men lay stubborn courage by,
Riding dull-eyed and silent in the train
To old men's stools; or sell gay-coloured socks
And listen fearfully for Death; so I
Love the low-laughing girls, who now again
Go daintily, in thin and flowery frocks.(249)
Robert Graves
Robert Graves (1895-1985) was born in London, and he served on the Western Front before ill health meant he was invalided home. Graves became a professor of poetry in Cairo, Majorca, and Oxford, and he famously wrote of his wartime experiences in the 1929 book Goodbye to All That.
The Last Post
The bugler sent a call of high romance –
'Lights out! Lights out! To the deserted square.
On the thin brazen notes he threw a prayer,
'God, if it's this for me next time in France …
O spare the phantom bugle as I lie
Dead in the gas and smoke and roar of guns,
Dead in a row with the other broken ones
Lying so stiff and still under the sky,
Jolly young Fusiliers too good to die.'(38)
Eva Dobell
Eva Dobell (1867-1973) travelled in Europe and Africa before serving as a nurse during the war and working as a children's author after it.
In A Soldier's Hospital I: Pluck
Crippled for life at seventeen,
His great eyes seem to question why:
With both legs smashed it might have been
Better in that grim trench to die
Than drag maimed years out helplessly.A child – so wasted and so white,
He told a lie to get his way,
To march, a man with men, and fight
While other boys are still at play.
A gallant lie your heart will say.So broke with pain, he shrinks in dread
To see the 'dresser' drawing near;
And winds the clothes about his head
That none may see his heart-sick fear.
His shaking, strangled sobs you hear.But when the dreaded moment's there
He'll face us all, a soldier yet,
Watch his bared wounds with unmoved air,
(Though tell-tale lashes still are wet,)
And smoke his woodbine cigarette.(207)
Gilbert Frankau
Gilbert Frankau (1884-1954) was born in London and attended Eton. Having travelled extensively before the war, he served in France and Italy until he was wounded and sent home in 1918. Frankau served in the RAF in WWII and was a prolific novelist.
The Deserter
'I'm sorry I done it, Major'
We bandaged the livid face;
And led him, ere the wan sun rose,
To die his death of disgrace.The bolt-heads locked to the cartridge;
The rifles steadied to rest,
As cold stock nestled at colder cheek
And foresight lined on the breast.'Fire!' called the Sergeant-Major.
The muzzles flamed as he spoke:
And the shameless soul of a nameless man
Went up in the cordite-smoke.(163)
Siegfried Sassoon
Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967) was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He fought on the Western Front and won the Military Cross but was invalided home in April 1917. Sassoon returned to see action in France and the Middle East and ended the war with the rank of captain.
They
The Bishop tells us: 'When the boys come back
They will not be the same; for they'll have fought
In a just cause: they lead the last attack
On Anti-Christ; their comrades' blood has bought
New right to breed an honourable race
They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.''We're none of us the same!' The boys reply.
'For George lost both his legs; and Bill's stone blind;
Poor Jim's shot through the lungs and like to die;
And Bert's gone siphilitic: you'll not find
A chap who's served that hasn't found some change.'
And the bishop said: 'the ways of God are strange!'(205)
G. K. Chesterton
English journalist and novelist G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) is most famous for his Father Brown detective stories.
Elegy in a Country Churchyard
The men hat worked for England
They have their graves at home:
And bees and birds of England
About the cross can roamBut they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England,
They have their graves afar.And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England
They have no graves as yet.(245)
Charlotte Mew
Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) was an English poet who was admired by many notable literary figures, including British author Thomas Hardy. Mew was diagnosed with neurasthenia and committed suicide in 1928.
May, 1915
Let us remember Spring will come again
To the scorched, blackened woods, where
the wounded trees
Wait with their old wise patience for the heavenly rain,
Sure of the sky: sure of the sea to send its healing
breeze,
Sure of the sun. And even as to these
Surely the Spring, when God shall please,
Will come again like a divine surprise
To those who sit to-day with their great Dead, hands in
their hands, eyes in their eyes,
At one with Love, at one with Grief: blind to the
scattered things and changing skies.(204)
