Some Desperate Glory (12 page)

And hatest nothing thou has made,

Please keep the Extra A.D.C.

Out of the sun and in the shade.

J
ULIAN
G
RENFELL

 

 

A Private

This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doors

Many a frozen night, and merrily

Answered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores:

‘At Mrs Greenland's Hawthorn Bush,' said he,

‘I slept.' None knew which bush. Above the town,

Beyond ‘The Drover', a hundred spot the down

In Wiltshire. And where now at last he sleeps

More sound in France – that, too, he secret keeps.

E
DWARD
T
HOMAS

 

 

Into Battle

(Flanders, April 1915)

The naked earth is warm with spring,

And with green grass and bursting trees

Leans to the sun's gaze glorying,

And quivers in the loving breeze;

And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light,

And a striving evermore for these;

And he is dead who will not fight;

And who dies fighting, has increase.

 

The fighting man shall from the sun

Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth;

Speed with the light-foot winds to run,

And with the trees to newer birth;

And find, when fighting shall be done,

Great rest, and fullness after dearth.

 

All the bright company of Heaven

Hold him in their high comradeship –

The Dog-star, and the Sisters Seven,

Orion's Belt and sworded hip.

 

The woodland trees that stand together,

They stand to him each one a friend;

They gently speak in the windy weather;

They guide to valley and ridge's end.

 

The kestrel hovering by day,

And the little owls that call by night,

Bid him be swift and keen as they,

As keen of sound, as swift of sight.

 

The blackbird sings to him, ‘Brother, brother,

If this be the last song you shall sing,

Sing well, for you will not sing another;

Brother, sing!'

 

In dreary doubtful, waiting hours,

Before the brazen frenzy starts,

The horses show him nobler powers;

O patient eyes, courageous hearts!

 

And when the burning moment breaks,

And all things else are out of mind,

And joy of battle only takes

Him by the throat, and makes him blind,

 

Through joy and blindness he shall know

Not caring much to know, that still

Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so

That it be not the Destined Will.

 

The thundering line of battle stands,

And in the air Death moans and sings;

But Day shall clasp him with strong hands,

And Night shall fold him in soft wings.

J
ULIAN
G
RENFELL

 

 

Battery Moving Up to a New Position from Rest Camp: Dawn

Not a sign of life we rouse

In any square close-shuttered house

That flanks the road we amble down

Toward far trenches through the town.

 

The dark, snow-slushy, empty street …

Tingle of frost in brow and feet …

Horse-breath goes dimly up like smoke.

No sound but the smacking stroke

 

As a sergeant flings each arm

Out and across to keep him warm,

And the sudden splashing crack

Of ice-pools broken by our track.

 

More dark houses, yet no sign

Of life … And axle's creak and whine …

The splash of hooves, the strain of trace …

Clatter: we cross the market place.

 

Deep quiet again, and on we lurch

Under the shadow of a church:

Its tower ascends, fog-wreathed and grim;

Within its aisles a light burns dim …

 

When, marvellous! from overhead,

Like abrupt speech of one deemed dead,

Speech-moved by some Superior Will,

A bell tolls thrice and then is still.

 

And suddenly I know that now

The priest within, with shining brow,

Lifts high the small round of the Host.

The server's tingling bell is lost

 

In clash of the greater overhead.

Peace like a wave descends, is spread,

While watch the peasants' reverent eyes …

 

The bell's boom trembles, hangs, and dies.

 

O people who bow down to see

The Miracle of Calvary,

The bitter and the glorious,

Bow down, bow down and pray for us.

 

Once more our anguished way we take

Towards our Golgotha, to make

For all our lovers sacrifice.

Again the troubled bell tolls thrice.

 

And slowly, slowly, lifted up

Dazzles the overflowing cup.

 

O worshipping, fond multitude,

Remember us too, and our blood.

 

Turn hearts to us as we go by,

Salute those about to die,

Plead for them, the deep bell toll:

Their sacrifice must soon be whole.

 

Entreat you for such hearts as break

With the premonitory ache

Of bodies, whose feet, hands, and side,

Must soon be torn, pierced, crucified.

 

Sue for them and all of us

Who the world over suffer thus,

Who scarce have time for prayer indeed,

Who only march and die and bleed.

*

The town is left, the road leads on,

Bluely glaring in the sun,

Toward where in the sunrise gate

Death, honour, and fierce battle wait.

R
OBERT
N
ICHOLS

 

 

Marching – As Seen from the Left File

My eyes catch ruddy necks

Sturdily pressed back, –

All a red brick moving glint.

Like flaming pendulums, hands

Swing across the khaki –

Mustard-coloured khaki –

To the automatic feet.

 

We husband the ancient glory

In these bared necks and hands.

Not broke is the forge of Mars;

But a subtler brain beats iron

To shoe the hoofs of death,

(Who paws dynamic air now).

Blind fingers loose an iron cloud

To rain immortal darkness

On strong eyes.

I
SAAC
R
OSENBERG

 

 

Such, Such is Death

Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat:

Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean,

A merciful putting away of what has been.

 

And this we know: Death is not Life effete,

Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seen

So marvellous things know well the end not yet.

 

Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:

Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say,

‘Come, what was your record when you drew breath?'

But a big blot has hid each yesterday

So poor, so manifestly incomplete.

And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,

Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet

And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.

C
HARLES
S
ORLEY

 

 

Cock-Crow

Out of the wood of thoughts that grows by night

To be cut down by the sharp axe of light, –

Out of the night, two cocks together crow,

Cleaving the darkness with a silver blow:

And brought before my eyes twin trumpeters stand,

Heralds of splendour, one at either hand,

Each facing each as in a coat of arms:

The milkers lace their boots up at the farms.

E
DWARD
T
HOMAS

 

 

‘When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead'

When you see millions of the mouthless dead

Across your dreams in pale battalions go,

Say not soft things as other men have said,

That you'll remember. For you need not so.

Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know

It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?

Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.

Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.

Say only this, ‘They are dead.' Then add thereto,

‘Yet many a better one has died before.'

Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you

Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,

It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.

Great death has made all his for evermore.

C
HARLES
S
ORLEY

 

 

The Redeemer

Darkness: the rain sluiced down; the mire was deep;

It was past twelve on a mid-winter night,

When peaceful folk in beds lay snug asleep;

There, with much work to do before the light,

We lugged our clay-sucked boots as best we might

Along the trench; sometimes a bullet sang,

And droning shells burst with a hollow bang;

We were soaked, chilled and wretched, every one;

Darkness; the distant wink of a huge gun.

 

I turned in the black ditch, loathing the storm;

A rocket fizzed and burned with blanching flare,

And lit the face of what had been a form

Floundering in mirk. He stood before me there;

I say that He was Christ; stiff in the glare;

And leaning forward from His burdening task,

Both arms supporting it; His eyes on mine

Stared from the woeful head that seemed a mask

Of mortal pain in Hell's unholy shine.

 

No thorny crown, only a woollen cap

He wore – an English soldier, white and strong,

Who loved his time like any simple chap,

Good days of work and sport and homely song;

Now he has learned that nights are very long,

And dawn a watching of the windowed sky.

But to the end, unjudging, he'll endure

Horror and pain, not uncontent to die

That Lancaster on Lune may stand secure.

 

He faced me, reeling in his weariness,

Shouldering his load of planks, so hard to bear.

I say that He was Christ, who wrought to bless

All groping things with freedom bright as air,

And with His mercy washed and made them fair.

Then the flame sank, and all grew black as pitch,

While we began to struggle along the ditch;

And someone flung his burden in the muck,

Mumbling: ‘O Christ Almighty, now I'm stuck!'

S
IEGFRIED
S
ASSOON

 

 

This is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong

This is no case of petty right or wrong

That politicians or philosophers

Can judge. I hate not Germans, nor grow hot

With love of Englishmen, to please newspapers.

Beside my hate for one fat patriot

My hatred of the Kaiser is love true: –

A kind of god he is, banging a gong.

But I have not to choose between the two,

Or between justice and injustice. Dinned

With war and argument I read no more

Than in the storm smoking along the wind

Athwart the wood. Two witches' cauldrons roar.

From one the weather shall rise clear and gay;

Out of the other an England beautiful

And like her mother that died yesterday.

Little I know or care if, being dull,

I shall miss something that historians

Can rake out of the ashes when perchance

The phoenix broods serene above their ken.

But with the best and meanest Englishmen

I am one in crying, God save England, lest

We lose what never slaves and cattle blessed.

The ages made her that made us from dust:

She is all we know and live by, and we trust

She is good and must endure, loving her so:

And as we love ourselves we hate her foe.

E
DWARD
T
HOMAS

 

1916

 

 

 

T
HE BATTLE OF
Verdun raged on France's eastern frontier. In the west the British, under pressure to relieve their ally, launched the huge offensive that became the battle of the Somme. Conscription was introduced in Britain, after the losses suffered by the original BEF and the new volunteer army. Isaac Rosenberg feared that this might show the enemy how desperate things were. Single men between eighteen and forty-one were called up in March 1916 – with exceptions for the unfit, the clergy, teachers and workers in industry; in May the draft was extended to married men. Ireland was exempted, the Asquith government recognizing that Irish nationalism might produce martyrs or rebellious conscripts. Even in Britain conscription was controversial, and in April 200,000 people demonstrated against it in Trafalgar Square. In the last months of the war the age was raised to fifty-one. Conscription lasted until 1920.

In 1916, more poets arrived in France. Edmund Blunden came out in the spring; Ivor Gurney arrived with the Gloucesters in May; Isaac Rosenberg disembarked at Le Havre in June; in December, Wilfred Owen was at Etaples.

There's doubt and pessimism in 1916. The heroine of Rose Macaulay's novel
Non-Combatants and Others
constantly sees headlines about British failures to hold trenches, British troops moving back, German counter-attacks regaining ground. H. G. Wells's Mr Britling is perplexed. In war, he thinks, with horror, that perhaps German cruelty has logic, even ‘a stupid rightness', if only in reaction to British indolence that is ‘at least equally stupid'. The most popular poem of the war – ‘In Flanders Fields' by the Canadian John McCrae – was published anonymously in
Punch
in December 1915. It would be reproduced often and translated into many languages (far more than Sassoon or Owen) and its author (after his name had been revealed) inundated with letters. The British government used the poem to encourage recruitment and to sell war bonds. Its tone, however, was mournful, if patriotic – and the line about crosses ‘row on row' grimly prophetic.