“And
you have fixed my life – however short. You did not light me: I was always a
mad comet; but you have fixed me.” Wilfred
Owen, “Letter to Siegfried Sassoon,” 5 November 1917
Siegfried
Sassoon
"The
War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon" is included below.
"The Road" by Sassoon can be
read free of charge at Project Gutenberg
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC (8
September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English poet, writer, and soldier.
Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets
of the First World War. His poetry both described the horrors of the trenches,
and satirised the patriotic pretensions of those who, in Sassoon's view, were
responsible for a jingoism-fuelled war.
Sassoon became a focal point for
dissent within the armed forces when he made a lone protest against the
continuation of the war in his "Soldier's Declaration" of 1917,
culminating in his admission to a military psychiatric hospital; this resulted
in his forming a friendship with Wilfred Owen, who was greatly influenced by
him. Sassoon later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume
fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston
trilogy".
Siegfried
Sassoon was born and grew up in the neo-gothic mansion named
"Weirleigh" (after its builder, Harrison Weir), in Matfield, Kent, to
a Jewish father and an Anglo-Catholic mother. His father, Alfred Ezra Sassoon
(1861–1895), son of Sassoon David Sassoon, was a member of the wealthy Baghdadi
Jewish Sassoon merchant family.
For marrying outside the faith, Alfred was
disinherited. Siegfried's mother, Theresa, belonged to the Thornycroft family,
sculptors responsible for many of the best-known statues in London—her brother
was Sir Hamo Thornycroft. There was no German ancestry in Siegfried's family;
his mother named him Siegfried because of her love of Wagner's operas. His
middle name, Loraine, was the surname of a clergyman with whom she was
friendly.
Siegfried
was the first of three sons, the others being Michael and Hamo. When he was
four years old his parents separated. During his father's weekly visits to the
boys, Theresa locked herself in the drawing-room. In 1895 Alfred Sassoon died
of tuberculosis.
Sassoon
was educated at the New Beacon School, Sevenoaks, Kent; at Marlborough College,
Marlborough, Wiltshire (where he was a member of Cotton House), and at Clare
College, Cambridge, where from 1905 to 1907 he read history. He went down from
Cambridge without a degree and spent the next few years hunting, playing
cricket and writing verse: some he published privately. Since his father had
been disinherited from the Sassoon fortune for marrying a non-Jew, Siegfried
had only a small private fortune that allowed him to live modestly without
having to earn a living (however, he would later be left a generous legacy by
an aunt, Rachel Beer, allowing him to buy the great estate of Heytesbury House
in Wiltshire.) His first published success, The Daffodil Murderer (1913), was a
parody of John Masefield's The Everlasting Mercy. Robert Graves, in Good-Bye to
All That describes it as a "parody of Masefield which, midway through, had
forgotten to be a parody and turned into rather good Masefield."
Sassoon
expressed his opinions on the political situation before the onset of the First
World War thus—"France was a lady, Russia was a bear, and performing in
the county cricket team was much more important than either of them".
Sassoon wanted to play for Kent County Cricket Club; Kent Captain Frank
Marchant was a neighbour of Sassoon. Siegfried often turned out for Bluehouses
at the Nevill Ground, where he sometimes played alongside Arthur Conan Doyle.
He also played cricket for his house at Marlborough College, once taking 7
wickets for 18 runs. Although an enthusiast, Sassoon was not good enough to
play for Kent, but he played cricket for Matfield, and later for the Downside
Abbey team, continuing into his seventies.
Motivated
by patriotism, Sassoon joined the British Army just as the threat of a new
European war was recognized, and was in service with the Sussex Yeomanry on 4
August 1914, the day the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland declared
war on Germany.
He broke his arm badly in a riding accident and was put out of
action before even leaving England, spending the spring of 1915 convalescing.
(Rupert Brooke, whom Siegfried had briefly met, died in April on the way to
Gallipoli.) He was commissioned into the 3rd Battalion (Special Reserve), Royal
Welch Fusiliers, as a second lieutenant on 29 May 1915. On 1 November his
younger brother Hamo was killed in the Gallipoli Campaign, and in the same
month Siegfried was sent to the 1st Battalion in France.
There he met Robert
Graves, and they became close friends. United by their poetic vocation, they
often read and discussed each other's work. Though this did not have much
perceptible influence on Graves's poetry, his views on what may be called
'gritty realism' profoundly affected Sassoon's concept of what constituted
poetry.
He soon became horrified by the realities of war, and the tone of his
writing changed completely: where his early poems exhibit a Romantic, dilettantish
sweetness, his war poetry moves to an increasingly discordant music, intended
to convey the ugly truths of the trenches to an audience hitherto lulled by
patriotic propaganda. Details such as rotting corpses, mangled limbs, filth,
cowardice and suicide are all trademarks of his work at this time, and this
philosophy of 'no truth unfitting' had a significant effect on the movement
towards Modernist poetry.
Sassoon's
periods of duty on the Western Front were marked by exceptionally brave
actions, including the single-handed capture of a German trench in the
Hindenburg Line. Armed with grenades, he scattered sixty German soldiers
He
went over with bombs in daylight, under covering fire from a couple of rifles,
and scared away the occupants. A pointless feat, since instead of signalling
for reinforcements, he sat down in the German trench and began reading a book
of poems which he had brought with him. When he went back he did not even
report. Colonel Stockwell, then in command, raged at him. The attack on Mametz
Wood had been delayed for two hours because British patrols were still reported
to be out. "British patrols" were Siegfried and his book of poems.
"I'd have got you a D.S.O., if you'd only shown more sense," stormed
Stockwell.
Sassoon's
bravery was inspiring to the extent that soldiers of his company said that they
felt confident only when they were accompanied by him.[9] He often went out on
night-raids and bombing patrols and demonstrated ruthless efficiency as a
company commander.
Deepening depression at the horror and misery the soldiers
were forced to endure produced in Sassoon a paradoxically manic courage, and he
was nicknamed "Mad Jack" by his men for his near-suicidal exploits.
On 27 July 1916 he was awarded the Military Cross; the citation read:
For
conspicuous gallantry during a raid on the enemy's trenches. He remained for 1½
hours under rifle and bomb fire collecting and bringing in our wounded. Owing
to his courage and determination all the killed and wounded were brought in.
Robert
Graves described Sassoon as engaging in suicidal feats of bravery. Sassoon was
also later (unsuccessfully) recommended for the Victoria Cross.
Despite
his decorations and reputation, in 1917 Sassoon decided to make a stand against
the conduct of the war. One of the reasons for his violent anti-war feeling was
the death of his friend David Cuthbert Thomas, who appears as "Dick
Tiltwood" in the Sherston trilogy. Sassoon would spend years trying to
overcome his grief.
At
the end of a spell of convalescent leave, Sassoon declined to return to duty;
instead, encouraged by pacifist friends such as Bertrand Russell and Lady
Ottoline Morrell, he sent a letter to his commanding officer entitled Finished
with the War: A Soldier’s Declaration. Forwarded to the press and read out in
the House of Commons by a sympathetic member of parliament, the letter was seen
by some as treasonous ("I am making this statement as an act of wilful
defiance of military authority") or at best as condemning the war
government's motives ("I believe that the war upon which I entered as a
war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and
conquest").
Rather than court-martial Sassoon, the Under-Secretary of
State for War, Ian Macpherson, decided that he was unfit for service and had
him sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh, where he was officially
treated for neurasthenia ("shell shock").
Before
declining to return to active service Sassoon had thrown the ribbon of his
Military Cross into the river Mersey. According to his description of this
incident in Memoirs of an Infantry Officer he did not, as one would infer from
the context of his action, do this as a symbolic rejection of militaristic
values, but simply out of the need to perform some destructive act in catharsis
of the black mood which was afflicting him; one of his pre-war sporting
trophies, had he had one to hand, would have served his purpose equally well.
The
novel Regeneration, by Pat Barker, is a fictionalised account of this period in
Sassoon's life, and was made into a film starring James Wilby as Sassoon and
Jonathan Pryce as W. H. R. Rivers, the psychiatrist responsible for Sassoon's
treatment. Rivers became a kind of surrogate father to the troubled young man,
and his sudden death in 1922 was a major blow to Sassoon.
At
Craiglockhart, Sassoon met Wilfred Owen, a fellow poet who would eventually
exceed him in fame. It was thanks to Sassoon that Owen persevered in his
ambition to write better poetry. A manuscript copy of Owen's Anthem for Doomed
Youth containing Sassoon's handwritten amendments survives as testimony to the
extent of his influence and is currently on display at London's Imperial War
Museum.
Sassoon became to Owen "Keats and Christ and Elijah";
surviving documents demonstrate clearly the depth of Owen's love and admiration
for him. Both men returned to active service in France, but Owen was killed in
1918. Sassoon, despite all this, was promoted to lieutenant, and having spent
some time out of danger in Palestine, eventually returned to the Front. On 13
July 1918, Sassoon was almost immediately wounded again—by friendly fire when
he was shot in the head by a fellow British soldier who had mistaken him for a
German near Arras, France.
As a result, he spent the remainder of the war in
Britain. By this time he had been promoted acting captain. He relinquished his
commission on health grounds on 12 March 1919, but was allowed to retain the
rank of captain. After the war, Sassoon was instrumental in bringing Owen's
work to the attention of a wider audience. Their friendship is the subject of
Stephen MacDonald's play, Not About Heroes.
Having
lived for a period at Oxford, where he spent more time visiting literary
friends than studying, he dabbled briefly in the politics of the Labour
movement, and in 1919 took up a post as literary editor of the socialist Daily
Herald. He lived at 54 Tufton Street, Westminster from 1919 to 1925; the house
is no longer standing, but the location of his former home is marked by a
memorial plaque.
During
his period at the Herald, Sassoon was responsible for employing several eminent
names as reviewers, including E. M. Forster and Charlotte Mew, and commissioned
original material from "names" like Arnold Bennett and Osbert
Sitwell.
His artistic interests extended to music. While at Oxford he was
introduced to the young William Walton, to whom he became a friend and patron.
Walton later dedicated his Portsmouth Point overture to Sassoon in recognition
of his financial assistance and moral support.
Sassoon
later embarked on a lecture tour of the USA, as well as travelling in Europe
and throughout Britain. He acquired a car, a gift from the publisher Frankie
Schuster, and became renowned among his friends for his lack of driving skill,
but this did not prevent him making full use of the mobility it gave him.
Sassoon
was a great admirer of the Welsh poet Henry Vaughan. On a visit to Wales in
1923, he paid a pilgrimage to Vaughan's grave at Llansantffraed, Powys, and
there wrote one of his best-known peacetime poems, "At the Grave of Henry
Vaughan". The deaths of three of his closest friends - Edmund Gosse,
Thomas Hardy and Frankie Schuster (the publisher) - within a short space of
time, came as another serious setback to his personal happiness.
At
the same time, Sassoon was preparing to take a new direction.
While in America,
he had experimented with a novel. In 1928, he branched out into prose, with
Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man, the anonymously-published first volume of a
fictionalised autobiography, which was almost immediately accepted as a
classic, bringing its author new fame as a humorous writer.
The book won the
1928 James Tait Black Award for fiction. Sassoon followed it with Memoirs of an
Infantry Officer (1930) and Sherston's Progress (1936). In later years, he
revisited his youth and early manhood with three volumes of genuine
autobiography, which were also widely acclaimed. These were The Old Century,
The Weald of Youth and Siegfried's Journey.
Sassoon,
having matured greatly as a result of his military service, continued to seek
emotional fulfilment, initially in a succession of love affairs with men,
including the landscape architectural and figure painter, draftsman and
illustrator, William Park "Gabriel" Atkin, actor Ivor Novello; Novello's former lover,
the actor Glen Byam Shaw; German aristocrat Prince Philipp of Hesse; the writer
Beverley Nichols; an effete aristocrat, the Hon. Stephen Tennant. Only the last of these made a permanent
impression, though Shaw remained his close friend throughout his life.
In
September 1931, Sassoon rented and began to live at Fitz House, Teffont Magna,
Wiltshire. In December 1933, to many people's surprise, he married Hester
Gatty, who was many years his junior; this led to the birth of a child,
something which he had long craved. This only child George (1936–2006), became
a scientist, linguist and author, and was adored by Siegfried, who wrote
several poems addressed to him. However, the marriage broke down after the
Second World War, Sassoon apparently unable to find a compromise between the
solitude he enjoyed and the companionship he craved.
Separated
from his wife in 1945, Sassoon lived in seclusion at Heytesbury in Wiltshire,
although he maintained contact with a circle which included E M Forster and J R
Ackerley. One of his closest friends was the young cricketer Dennis Silk. He
formed a close friendship with Vivien Hancock, headmistress of Greenways School
at Ashton Gifford, which his son George attended. The relationship provoked
Hester to make some strong accusations against Vivien Hancock, who responded with
the threat of legal action
Siegfried
Sassoon died one week before his 81st birthday, of stomach cancer, and is buried at St Andrew's Church, Mells, Somerset, close to Ronald
Knox
Regeneration is a 1997 film
adaptation of the novel of the same name by Pat Barker. The film is directed by
Gillies MacKinnon. It was released as Behind the Lines in the USA in 1998. The
film follows the stories of a number of Officers of the British Army during
World War I who are brought together in Craiglockhart War Hospital where they
are treated for various trauma. It features the story of Siegfried Sassoon, his
open letter reprinted in The Times criticising the conduct of the war and his
return to the front.
The film starts by referring to
Siegfried Sassoon's open letter (Finished with the War: A Soldier’s
Declaration) dated July 1917, inveighing "against the political errors and
insincerities for which the fighting men are being sacrificed".
The letter has been published in The Times and
has received much attention in England particularly because Sassoon is
considered a hero for several (perhaps suicidally rash) acts of valour - and
has been the recipient of the Military Cross which we see Sassoon throwing
away.
With the string-pulling and
guidance of Robert Graves, a fellow poet and friend of Sassoon, the army
decides to send Sassoon to Craiglockhart War Hospital, a psychiatric facility
in Scotland, rather than court-martialling him. At Craiglockhart, Sassoon meets
Dr. William Rivers, a Freudian psychiatrist who encourages his patients to
express their war memories as therapy.
There is no clear main
character in this film, but there is more focus on several of the characters;
notably, Billy Prior, Siegfried Sassoon and Dr. Rivers himself. A very
important secondary character, Wilfred Owen, is linked to Sassoon’s storyline.
Prior, at first an
unsympathetic character, presents a challenge to Dr Rivers, who needs to
discover what experience in the trenches caused the loss of Prior's ability to
speak. Prior regains his speech suddenly then goes into the town in search of
female companionship and begins a relationship with Sarah, a munitions worker.
He has a strong sense of social class, setting himself apart from the other
officers ("public school toffs") and refers to incidents that have
caused him to distrust the military authorities.
There are a number of
references to the difference in treatment between the privates and the
officers, including the most glaring, Craiglockhart itself which only caters
for officers. When Prior is finally ready for hypnosis, he and Rivers discover
that his trauma was caused by the death of one of Prior's men in the trench,
blown to bits by a bomb.
Prior lost his power of speech
after having picked up the eyeball of the killed private and asked what should
be done with "this gobstopper". This seems strange to Prior who had
expected his condition to be caused by some action for which he was
responsible. He feels he has to return to active duty in the trenches to prove
to himself and the world that he is as fully competent as before.
Sassoon becomes friends with
another patient in the hospital, Wilfred Owen. Owen aspires to be a poet as
well and he greatly respects Sassoon's work; Sassoon agrees to help Owen with
his poetry.
Meanwhile, Doctor Rivers has
taken a leave of absence from the hospital and visits Dr. Lewis Yealland’s
practice in London. Dr. Yealland treats his patients, who are privates and not
officers, not like traumatised human beings but like mere machines, which need
to be repaired as quickly as possible.
Rivers sits in on one of Yealland’s
electroshock therapy sessions on a private named Callan, who, like Prior, has
lost his speech. Rivers is repulsed by the brutality of the treatment, and back
in Craiglockhart he continues to produce what Sassoon calls his "gentle
miracles" but at the cost of his own mental health - in contrast to
Yealland who seems to feel nothing towards his patients but is proud of his
success in treating mutism.
Sassoon has also come to a very
important decision. Although he still disagrees with the reasons for the
continuation of the war, he decides to return to France in order to care for
his men.
During the Review Board’s
evaluation of Sassoon, Rivers is surprised by Sassoon's insistence that he
hasn't changed his mind. As such he still fulfills the qualification of mental
illness that landed him at Craiglockhart. On the other hand Sassoon did not
truly qualify as mentally ill in the first place, and he strongly wishes to
return to the war.
When his opinion is needed, he qualifies
Sassoon as being fit, and thereby qualified to return to war. Sassoon is seen
soon after being injured whilst in a trench and laughing - to the bemused
consternation of his men.
The ambiguity of this scene (as to the seriousness of
the injury) is only resolved when Rivers reads a letter from him after the end
of hostilities.
In the meantime, Prior goes
before the medical board and is assigned to home duties, probably because of
his asthma, which means he cannot be sure in himself as to whether he is truly
cured. He is last seen in bed with Sarah.
The final scenes show Wilfred
Owen's body in France after the end of the conflict and Rivers' sadness on
hearing of it. He is seen crying as he reads Owen's "The Parable of the
Old Man and the Young" that Sassoon sent him.
The visual motif of moving through a canal
tunnel which has been Owen's dream is now resolved. Unlike other patients'
dreams which are the shocking visualisations of the traumatic events which
resulted in their breakdowns, Owen's is the premonition of his own death.
Poetry collections
The
Daffodil Murderer (John Richmond: 1913)
The
Old Huntsman (Heinemann: 1917)
The
General (Denmark Hill Hospital, April 1917)
Does
it Matter? (written: 1917)
Counter-Attack
and Other Poems (Heinemann: 1918)
The
Hero [Henry Holt, 1918]
Picture-Show
(Heinemann: 1919)
War
Poems (Heinemann: 1919)
Aftermath
(Heinemann: 1920)
Recreations
(privately printed: 1923)
Lingual
Exercises for Advanced Vocabularians (privately printed: 1925)
Selected
Poems (Heinemann: 1925)
Satirical
Poems (Heinemann: 1926)
The
Heart's Journey (Heinemann: 1928)
Poems
by Pinchbeck Lyre (Duckworth: 1931)
The
Road to Ruin (Faber and Faber: 1933)
Vigils
(Heinemann: 1935)
Rhymed
Ruminations (Faber and Faber: 1940)
Poems
Newly Selected (Faber and Faber: 1940)
Collected
Poems (Faber and Faber: 1947)
Common
Chords (privately printed: 1950/1951)
Emblems
of Experience (privately printed: 1951)
The
Tasking (privately printed: 1954)
Sequences
(Faber and Faber: 1956)
Lenten
Illuminations (Downside Abbey: 1959)
The
Path to Peace (Stanbrook Abbey Press: 1960)
Collected
Poems 1908-1956 (Faber and Faber: 1961)
The
War Poems ed. Rupert Hart-Davis (Faber and Faber: 1983)
Prose
Memoirs
of a Fox-Hunting Man (Faber & Gwyer: 1928)
Memoirs
of an Infantry Officer (Faber and Faber: 1930)
Sherston's
Progress (Faber and Faber: 1936)
Complete
Memoirs of George Sherston (Faber and Faber: 1937)
The
Old Century and seven more years (Faber and Faber: 1938)
On
Poetry (University of Bristol Press: 1939)
The
Weald of Youth (Faber and Faber: 1942)
Siegfried's
Journey, 1916-1920 (Faber and Faber: 1945)
Meredith
(Constable: 1948) - Biography of George Meredith
THE WAR
POEMS OF SIEGFRIED SASSOON
PRELUDE: THE TROOPS
Dim, gradual
thinning of the shapeless gloom
Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals
Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots
And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky
Haggard and hopeless. They, who have beaten
down
The stale despair of night, must now renew
Their desolation in the truce of dawn,
Murdering the livid hours that grope for
peace.
Yet these, who
cling to life with stubborn hands,
Can grin through storms of death and find a
gap
In the clawed, cruel tangles of his defence.
They march from safety, and the bird-sung joy
Of grass-green thickets, to the land where all
Is ruin, and nothing blossoms but the sky
That hastens over them where they endure
Sad, smoking, flat horizons, reeking woods,
And foundered trench-lines volleying doom for
doom.
O my brave
brown companions, when your souls
Flock silently away, and the eyeless dead,
Shame the wild beast of battle on the ridge,
Death will stand grieving in that field of war
Since your unvanquished hardihood is spent.
And through some mooned Valhalla there will
pass
Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell;
The unreturning army that was youth;
The legions who have suffered and are dust.
DREAMERS
Soldiers are
citizens of death's gray land,
Drawing no dividend from time's to-morrows.
In the great hour of destiny they stand,
Each with his feuds, and jealousies, and
sorrows.
Soldiers are sworn to action; they must win
Some flaming, fatal climax with their lives.
Soldiers are dreamers; when the guns begin
They think of firelit homes, clean beds, and
wives.
I see them in
foul dug-outs, gnawed by rats,
And in the ruined trenches, lashed with
rain,
Dreaming of things they did with balls and
bats,
And mocked by hopeless longing to regain
Bank-holidays, and picture shows, and spats,
And going to the office in the train.
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 some one flung his burden in the muck,
Mumbling: "O Christ Almighty, now I'm
stuck!"
TRENCH DUTY
Shaken from
sleep, and numbed and scarce awake,
Out in the trench with three hours' watch to
take,
I blunder through the splashing mirk; and then
Hear the gruff muttering voices of the men
Crouching in cabins candle-chinked with light.
Hark! There's the big bombardment on our right
Rumbling and bumping; and the dark's a glare
Of flickering horror in the sectors where
We raid the Boche; men waiting, stiff and
chilled,
Or crawling on their bellies through the wire.
"What? Stretcher-bearers wanted? Some one
killed?"
Five minutes ago I heard a sniper fire:
Why did he do it?… Starlight overhead—
Blank stars.
I'm wide-awake; and some chap's dead.
WIRERS
"Pass it
along, the wiring party's going out"—
And yawning
sentries mumble, "Wirers going out."
Unravelling; twisting; hammering stakes with
muffled thud,
They toil with stealthy haste and anger in
their blood.
The Boche
sends up a flare. Black forms stand rigid there,
Stock-still like posts; then darkness, and the
clumsy ghosts
Stride hither and thither, whispering, tripped
by clutching snare
Of snags and tangles.
Ghastly dawn with vaporous coasts
Gleams desolate along the sky, night's misery
ended.
Young Hughes
was badly hit; I heard him carried away,
Moaning at every lurch; no doubt he'll die
to-day.
But we can say the front-line wire's been
safely mended.
BREAK OF DAY
There seemed a
smell of autumn in the air
At the bleak end of night; he shivered there
In a dank, musty dug-out where he lay,
Legs wrapped in sand-bags,—lumps of chalk and
clay
Spattering his face. Dry-mouthed, he thought,
"To-day
We start the damned attack; and, Lord knows
why,
Zero's at nine; how bloody if I'm done in
Under the freedom of that morning sky!"
And then he coughed and dozed, cursing the
din.
Was it the
ghost of autumn in that smell
Of underground, or God's blank heart grown
kind,
That sent a happy dream to him in hell?—
Where men are
crushed like clods, and crawl to find
Some crater for their wretchedness; who lie
In outcast immolation, doomed to die
Far from clean things or any hope of cheer,
Cowed anger in their eyes, till darkness brims
And roars into their heads, and they can hear
Old childish talk, and tags of foolish hymns.
He sniffs the
chilly air; (his dreaming starts).
He's riding in a dusty Sussex lane
In quiet September; slowly night departs;
And he's a living soul, absolved from pain.
Beyond the brambled fences where he goes
Are glimmering fields with harvest piled in
sheaves,
And tree-tops dark against the stars grown
pale;
Then, clear and shrill, a distant farm-cock
crows;
And there's a wall of mist along the vale
Where willows shake their watery-sounding
leaves.
He gazes on it all, and scarce believes
That earth is telling its old peaceful tale;
He thanks the blessed world that he was born….
Then, far
away, a lonely note of the horn.
They're
drawing the Big Wood! Unlatch the gate,
And set Golumpus going on the grass:
He knows the
corner where it's best to wait
And hear the crashing woodland chorus pass;
The corner where old foxes make their track
To the Long Spinney; that's the place to be.
The bracken shakes below an ivied tree,
And then a cub looks out; and
"Tally-o-back!"
He bawls, and swings his thong with volleying
crack,—
All the clean
thrill of autumn in his blood,
And hunting surging through him like a flood
In joyous welcome from the untroubled past;
While the war drifts away, forgotten at last.
Now a red,
sleepy sun above the rim
Of twilight stares along the quiet weald,
And the kind, simple country shines revealed
In solitudes of peace, no longer dim.
The old horse lifts his face and thanks the
light,
Then stretches down his head to crop the
green.
All things that he has loved are in his sight;
The places where his happiness has been
Are in his eyes, his heart, and they are good.
* * * * *
Hark! there's
the horn: they're drawing the Big Wood.
A WORKING PARTY
Three hours
ago he blundered up the trench,
Sliding and poising, groping with his boots;
Sometimes he tripped and lurched against the
walls
With hands that pawed the sodden bags of
chalk.
He couldn't see the man who walked in front;
Only he heard the drum and rattle of feet
Stepping along the trench-boards,—often
splashing
Wretchedly where the sludge was ankle-deep.
Voices would
grunt, "Keep to your right,—make way!"
When squeezing past the men from the
front-line:
White faces peered, puffing a point of red;
Candles and braziers glinted through the
chinks
And curtain-flaps of dug-outs; then the gloom
Swallowed his sense of sight; he stooped and
swore
Because a sagging wire had caught his neck.
A flare went up; the shining whiteness spread
And flickered upward, showing nimble rats,
And mounds of glimmering sand-bags, bleached
with rain;
Then the slow, silver moment died in dark.
The wind came
posting by with chilly gusts
And buffeting at corners, piping thin
And dreary through the crannies; rifle-shots
Would split and crack and sing along the
night,
And shells came calmly through the drizzling
air
To burst with hollow bang below the hill.
Three hours
ago he stumbled up the trench;
Now he will never walk that road again:
He must be carried back, a jolting lump
Beyond all need of tenderness and care;
A nine-stone corpse with nothing more to do.
He was a young
man with a meagre wife
And two pale children in a Midland town;
He showed the photograph to all his mates;
And they considered him a decent chap
Who did his work and hadn't much to say,
And always laughed at other people's jokes
Because he hadn't any of his own.
That night,
when he was busy at his job
Of piling bags along the parapet,
He thought how slow time went, stamping his
feet,
And blowing on his fingers, pinched with cold.
He thought of
getting back by half-past twelve,
And tot of rum to send him warm to sleep
In draughty dug-out frowsty with the fumes
Of coke, and full of snoring, weary men.
He pushed
another bag along the top,
Craning his body outward; then a flare
Gave one white glimpse of No Man's Land and
wire;
And as he dropped his head the instant split
His startled life with lead, and all went out.
STAND-TO: GOOD FRIDAY MORNING
I'd been on
duty from two till four.
I went and stared at the dug-out door.
Down in the frowst I heard them snore.
"Stand-to!" Somebody grunted and
swore.
Dawn was misty; the skies were still;
Larks were singing, discordant, shrill;
They seemed happy; but I felt ill.
Deep in water I splashed my way
Up the trench to our bogged front line.
Rain had fallen the whole damned night.
O Jesus, send me a wound to-day,
And I'll believe in Your bread and wine,
And get my bloody old sins washed white!
"IN THE PINK"
So Davies
wrote: "This leaves me in the pink."
Then scrawled his name: "Your loving
sweetheart, Willie."
With crosses for a hug. He'd had a drink
Of rum and tea; and, though the barn was
chilly,
For once his blood ran warm; he had pay to
spend.
Winter was passing; soon the year would mend.
He couldn't
sleep that night. Stiff in the dark
He groaned and thought of Sundays at the farm,
When he'd go out as cheerful as a lark
In his best suit to wander arm-in-arm
With brown-eyed Gwen, and whisper in her ear
The simple, silly things she liked to hear.
And then he
thought: to-morrow night we trudge
Up to the trenches, and my boots are rotten.
Five miles of stodgy clay and freezing sludge,
And everything but wretchedness forgotten.
To-night he's in the pink; but soon he'll die.
And still the war goes on; he don't know why.
THE HERO
"Jack
fell as he'd have wished," the Mother said,
And folded up the letter that she'd read.
"The Colonel writes so nicely."
Something broke
In the tired voice that quavered to a choke.
She half looked up. "We mothers are so
proud
Of our dead soldiers." Then her face was
bowed.
Quietly the
Brother Officer went out.
He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies
That she would nourish all her days, no doubt.
For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak
eyes
Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with
joy,
Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy.
He thought how
"Jack," cold-footed, useless swine,
Had panicked down the trench that night the
mine
Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried
To get sent home; and how, at last, he died,
Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care
Except that lonely woman with white hair.
BEFORE THE BATTLE
Music of
whispering trees
Hushed by the broad-winged breeze
Where shaken water gleams;
And evening radiance falling
With reedy bird-notes calling.
O bear me safe through dark, you low-voiced
streams.
I have no need
to pray
That fear may pass away;
I scorn the growl and rumble of the fight
That summons me from cool
Silence of marsh and pool,
And yellow lilies islanded in light.
O river of stars and shadows, lead me through
the night.
June 25th, 1916.
THE ROAD
The road is
thronged with women; soldiers pass
And halt, but never see them; yet they're
here—
A patient
crowd along the sodden grass,
Silent, worn out with waiting, sick with fear.
The road goes crawling up a long hillside,
All ruts and stones and sludge, and the
emptied dregs
Of battle thrown in heaps. Here where they
died
Are stretched big-bellied horses with stiff
legs;
And dead men, bloody-fingered from the fight,
Stare up at caverned darkness winking white.
You in the
bomb-scorched kilt, poor sprawling Jock,
You tottered here and fell, and stumbled on,
Half dazed for want of sleep. No dream could
mock
Your reeling brain with comforts lost and
gone.
You did not feel her arms about your knees,
Her blind caress, her lips upon your head:
Too tired for thoughts of home and love and
ease,
The road would serve you well enough for bed.
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AFTER
Trudging by
Corbie Ridge one winter's night,
(Unless old, hearsay memories tricked his
sight),
Along the pallid edge of the quiet sky
He watched a nosing lorry grinding on,
And straggling files of men; when these were
gone,
A double limber and six mules went by,
Hauling the rations up through ruts and mud
To trench-lines digged two hundred years ago.
Then darkness hid them with a rainy scud,
And soon he saw the village lights below.
But when he'd
told his tale, an old man said
That he'd seen soldiers pass along that hill;
"Poor, silent things, they were the
English dead
Who came to fight in France and got their
fill."
THE DREAM
I
Moonlight and
dew-drenched blossom, and the scent
Of summer gardens; these can bring you all
Those dreams that in the starlit silence fall:
Sweet songs are full of odours.
While I went
Last night in drizzling dusk along a lane,
I passed a squalid farm; from byre and midden
Came the rank smell that brought me once again
A dream of war that in the past was hidden.
II
Up a
disconsolate straggling village street
I saw the tired troops trudge: I heard their
feet.
The cheery Q.M.S. was there to meet
And guide our Company in….
I watched them
stumble.
Into some crazy hovel, too beat to grumble;
Saw them file inward, slipping from their
backs
Rifles, equipment, packs.
On filthy
straw they sit in the gloom, each face
Bowed to patched, sodden boots they must
unlace,
While the wind chills their sweat through
chinks and cracks.
III
I'm looking at
their blistered feet; young Jones
Stares up at me, mud-splashed and white and
jaded;
Out of his eyes the morning light has faded.
Old soldiers with three winters in their bones
Puff their damp Woodbines, whistle, stretch
their toes
They can still
grin at me, for each of 'em knows
That I'm as tired as they are….
Can they guess
The secret burden that is always mine?—
Pride in their
courage; pity for their distress;
And burning bitterness
That I must take them to the accursèd Line.
IV
I cannot hear
their voices, but I see
Dim candles in the barn: they gulp their tea,
And soon they'll sleep like logs. Ten miles
away
The battle winks and thuds in blundering
strife.
And I must lead them nearer, day by day,
To the foul beast of war that bludgeons life.
AT CARNOY
Down in the
hollow there's the whole Brigade
Camped in four groups: through twilight
falling slow
I hear a sound of mouth-organs, ill-played,
And murmur of voices, gruff, confused, and
low.
Crouched among thistle-tufts I've watched the
glow
Of a blurred orange sunset flare and fade;
And I'm content. To-morrow we must go
To take some cursèd Wood…. O world God made!
July 3rd, 1916.
BATTALION RELIEF
"Fall in!
Now, get a move on!" (Curse the rain.)
We splash away along the straggling village,
Out to the flat rich country green with June….
And sunset flares
across wet crops and tillage,
Blazing with splendour-patches. Harvest soon
Up in the Line. "Perhaps the War'll be
done
By Christmas-time. Keep smiling then, old
son!"
Here's the
Canal: it's dusk; we cross the bridge.
"Lead on there by platoons." The
Line's a-glare
With shell-fire through the poplars; distant
rattle
Of rifles and machine-guns. "Fritz is
there!
Christ, ain't it lively, Sergeant? Is't a
battle?"
More rain: the lightning blinks, and thunder
rumbles.
"There's overhead artillery," some
chap grumbles.
"What's
all this mob, by the cross-road?" (The guides)…. "Lead on with Number
One" (And off they go.)
"Three-minute
intervals." … Poor blundering files, Sweating and blindly burdened; who's
to know If death will catch them in those two dark miles? (More rain.)
"Lead on, Headquarters." (That's the lot.) "Who's that? O,
Sergeant-major; don't get shot! And tell me, have we won this war or not?"
THE DUG-OUT
Why do you lie
with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen cold
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch
you,
Deep-shadow'd from the candle's guttering
gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the
shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your
head….
You are too
young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.
THE REAR-GUARD
(Hindenburg
Line, April 1917.)
Groping along
the tunnel, step by step,
He winked his prying torch with patching glare
From side to side, and sniffed the unwholesome
air.
Tins, boxes, bottles,
shapes too vague to know,
A mirror smashed, the mattress from a bed;
And he, exploring fifty feet below
The rosy gloom of battle overhead.
Tripping, he
grabbed the wall; saw some one lie
Humped at his feet, half-hidden by a rug,
And stooped to give the sleeper's arm a tug.
"I'm looking for headquarters." No
reply.
"God blast your neck!" (For days
he'd had no sleep,)
"Get up and guide me through this
stinking place."
Savage, he kicked a soft, unanswering heap,
And flashed his beam across the livid face
Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore
Agony dying hard ten days before;
And fists of fingers clutched a blackening
wound.
Alone he
staggered on until he found
Dawn's ghost that filtered down a shafted
stair
To the dazed, muttering creatures underground
Who hear the boom of shells in muffled sound.
At last, with sweat of horror in his hair,
He climbed through darkness to the twilight
air,
Unloading hell behind him step by step.
I STOOD WITH THE DEAD
I stood with
the Dead, so forsaken and still:
When dawn was grey I stood with the Dead.
And my slow heart said, "You must kill;
you must kill:
Soldier, soldier, morning is red."
On the shapes
of the slain in their crumpled disgrace
I stared for a while through the thin cold
rain….
"O lad that I loved, there is rain on
your face,
And your eyes are blurred and sick like the
plain."
I stood with
the Dead…. They were dead; they were dead;
My heart and my head beat a march of dismay;
And gusts of the wind came dulled by the
guns….
"Fall in!" I shouted; "Fall
in for your pay!"
SUICIDE IN TRENCHES
I knew a
simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter
trenches, cowed and glum
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.
* * * * *
You smug-faced
crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
ATTACK
At dawn the
ridge emerges massed and dun
In the wild purple of the glowering sun
Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke
that shroud
The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,
Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire.
The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily
bowed
With bombs and guns and shovels and
battle-gear,
Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling
fire.
Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with
fear,
They leave their trenches, going over the top,
While time ticks blank and busy on their
wrists,
And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling
fists,
Flounders in mud. O Jesu, make it stop!
COUNTER-ATTACK
We'd gained
our first objective hours before
While dawn broke like a face with blinking
eyes,
Pallid, unshaved and thirsty, blind with
smoke.
Things seemed all right at first. We held
their line,
With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed,
And clink of shovels deepening the shallow
trench.
The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy
legs
High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the
saps
And trunks, face downward in the sucking mud,
Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely
filled;
And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair,
Bulged, clotted heads, slept in the plastering
slime.
And then the rain began,—the jolly old rain!
A yawning
soldier knelt against the bank,
Staring across the morning blear with fog;
He wondered when the Allemands would get busy;
And then, of course, they started with five-nines
Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud.
Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them
burst
Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from
hell,
While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of
smoke.
He crouched
and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear,
Sick for escape,—loathing the strangled horror
And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead.
An officer
came blundering down the trench:
"Stand-to and man the fire-step!" On
he went….
Gasping and
bawling, "Fire-step … counter-attack!"
Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right
Down the old sap: machine-guns on the left;
And stumbling figures looming out in front.
"O Christ, they're coming at us!"
Bullets spat,
And he remembered his rifle … rapid fire …
And started
blazing wildly … then a bang
Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him
out
To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he
choked
And fought the flapping veils of smothering
gloom,
Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and
groans….
Down, and
down, and down, he sank and drowned,
Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had
failed.
THE EFFECT
"The
effect of our bombardment was terrific. One man told me he had never seen so
many dead before."
War
Correspondent.
"He'd
never seen so many dead before." They sprawled in yellow daylight while he
swore And gasped and lugged his everlasting load Of bombs along what once had
been a road. "How peaceful are the dead." Who put that silly gag in
some one's head?
"He'd
never seen so many dead before."
The lilting words danced up and down his
brain,
While corpses jumped and capered in the rain.
No, no; he wouldn't count them any more….
The dead have
done with pain:
They've choked; they can't come back to life
again.
When Dick was
killed last week he looked like that,
Flapping along the fire-step like a fish,
After the blazing crump had knocked him flat….
"How many dead? As many as ever you wish.
Don't count 'em; they're too many.
Who'll buy my nice fresh corpses, two a
penny?"
REMORSE
Lost in the
swamp and welter of the pit,
He flounders off the duck-boards; only he
knows
Each flash and spouting crash,—each instant
lit
When gloom reveals the streaming rain. He goes
Heavily, blindly on. And, while he blunders,
"Could anything be worse than
this?"—he wonders,
Remembering how he saw those Germans run,
Screaming for mercy among the stumps of trees:
Green-faced, they dodged and darted: there was
one
Livid with terror, clutching at his knees….
Our chaps were
sticking 'em like pigs…. "O hell!"
He thought—"there's things in war one
dare not tell
Poor father sitting safe at home, who reads
Of dying heroes and their deathless
deeds."
IN AN UNDERGROUND DRESSING-STATION
Quietly they
set their burden down: he tried
To grin; moaned; moved his head from side to
side.
* * * * *
He gripped the
stretcher; stiffened; glared; and screamed,
"O put my leg down, doctor, do!"
(He'd got
A bullet in his ankle; and he'd been shot
Horribly through the guts.) The surgeon seemed
So kind and gentle, saying, above that crying,
"You must keep still, my lad." But
he was dying.
DIED OF WOUNDS
His wet, white
face and miserable eyes
Brought nurses to him more than groans and
sighs:
But hoarse and low and rapid rose and fell
His troubled voice: he did the business well.
The ward grew
dark; but he was still complaining,
And calling out for "Dickie."
"Curse the Wood!
It's time to go; O Christ, and what's the
good?—
We'll never
take it; and it's always raining."
I wondered
where he'd been; then heard him shout,
"They snipe like hell! O Dickie, don't go
out" …
I fell asleep
… next morning he was dead;
And some Slight Wound lay smiling on his bed.
II
"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 comrade's 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 syphilitic: 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!"
BASE DETAILS
If I were
fierce, and bald, and short of breath,
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You'd see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young
chap,"
I'd say—"I used to know his father well;
Yes, we've lost heavily in this last
scrap."
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I'd toddle safely home and die—in bed.
LAMENTATIONS
I found him in
a guard-room at the Base.
From the blind darkness I had heard his crying
And blundered in. With puzzled, patient face
A sergeant watched him; it was no good trying
To stop it; for he howled and beat his chest.
And, all because his brother had gone West,
Raved at the bleeding war; his rampant grief
Moaned, shouted, sobbed, and choked, while he
was kneeling
Half-naked on the floor. In my belief
Such men have lost all patriotic feeling.
THE GENERAL
"Good-morning;
good-morning!" the General said
When we met him last week on our way to the
Line,
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em
dead,
And we're cursing his staff for incompetent
swine.
"He's a cheery old card," grunted
Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and
pack.
* * * * *
But he did for
them both by his plan of attack.
HOW TO DIE
Dark clouds
are smouldering into red
While down the craters morning burns.
The dying soldier shifts his head
To watch the glory that returns:
He lifts his fingers toward the skies
Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,
And on his lips a whispered name.
You'd think,
to hear some people talk,
That lads go West with sobs and curses,
And sullen faces white as chalk,
Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses.
But they've been taught the way to do it
Like Christian soldiers; not with haste
And shuddering groans; but passing through it
With due regard for decent taste.
EDITORIAL IMPRESSION
He seemed so
certain "all was going well,"
As he discussed the glorious time he'd had
While visiting the trenches.
"One can
tell
You've gathered big impressions!" grinned
the lad
Who'd been severely wounded in the back
In some wiped-out impossible Attack.
"Impressions? Yes, most vivid! I am
writing
A little book called Europe on the Rack,
Based on notes made while witnessing the
fighting.
I hope I've caught the feeling of 'the Line,'
And the amazing spirit of the troops.
By Jove, those flying-chaps of ours are fine!
I watched one daring beggar looping loops,
Soaring and diving like some bird of prey.
And through it all I felt that splendour shine
Which makes us win."
The soldier sipped his
wine.
"Ah, yes, but it's the Press that leads
the way!"
FIGHT TO A FINISH
The boys came
back. Bands played and flags were flying,
And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit
street
To cheer the soldiers who'd refrained from
dying,
And hear the music of returning feet.
"Of all the thrills and ardours War has
brought,
This moment is the finest." (So they
thought.)
Snapping their
bayonets on to charge the mob,
Grim Fusiliers broke ranks with glint of
steel.
At last the boys had found a cushy job.
* * * * *
I heard the Yellow-Pressmen grunt and squeal;
And with my trusty bombers turned and went
To clear those Junkers out of Parliament.
ATROCITIES
You told me,
in your drunken-boasting mood,
How once you butchered prisoners. That was
good!
I'm sure you felt no pity while they stood
Patient and cowed and scared, as prisoners
should.
How did you do
them in? Come, don't be shy:
You know I love to hear how Germans die,
Downstairs in dug-outs. "Camerad!"
they cry;
Then squeal like stoats when bombs begin to
fly.
* * * * *
And you? I
know your record. You went sick
When orders looked unwholesome: then, with
trick
And lie, you wangled home. And here you are,
Still talking big and boozing in a bar.
THE FATHERS
Snug at the
club two fathers sat,
Gross, goggle-eyed, and full of chat.
One of them said: "My eldest lad
Writes cheery letters from Bagdad.
But Arthur's getting all the fun
At Arras with his nine-inch gun."
"Yes,"
wheezed the other, "that's the luck!
My boy's quite broken-hearted, stuck
In England training all this year.
Still, if there's truth in what we hear,
The Huns intend to ask for more
Before they bolt across the Rhine."
I watched them toddle through the door—
These impotent old friends of mine.
"BLIGHTERS"
The house is
crammed: tier beyond tier they grin
And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks
Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din;
"We're sure the Kaiser loves the dear old
Tanks!"
I'd like to
see a Tank come down the stalls,
Lurching to rag-time tunes, or "Home,
sweet Home,"—
And there'd be
no more jokes in Music-halls
To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.
GLORY OF WOMEN
You love us
when we're heroes, home on leave,
Or wounded in a mentionable place.
You worship decorations; you believe
That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace.
You make us shells. You listen with delight,
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
And mourn our laurelled memories when we're
killed.
You can't
believe that British troops "retire"
When hell's last horror breaks them, and they
run,
Trampling the terrible corpses—blind with
blood.
O German
mother dreaming by the fire,
While you are knitting socks to send your son
His face is trodden deeper in the mud.
THEIR FRAILTY
He's got a
Blighty wound. He's safe; and then
War's fine and bold and bright.
She can forget the doomed and prisoned men
Who agonize and fight.
He's back in
France. She loathes the listless strain
And peril of his plight.
Beseeching Heaven to send him home again,
She prays for peace each night.
Husbands and
sons and lovers; everywhere
They die; War bleeds us white.
Mothers and wives and sweethearts,—they don't
care
So long as He's all right.
DOES IT MATTER?
Does it
matter?—losing your legs?…
For people
will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind
When the others come in after football
To gobble their muffins and eggs.
Does it
matter?—losing your sight?…
There's such
splendid work for the blind;
And people will always be kind,
As you sit on the terrace remembering
And turning your face to the light.
Do they matter?—those
dreams from the pit?…
You can drink
and forget and be glad,
And people won't say that you're mad;
For they'll know that you've fought for your
country,
And no one will worry a bit.
SURVIVORS
No doubt
they'll soon get well; the shock and strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected
talk.
Of course they're "longing to go out
again,"—
These boys
with old, scared faces, learning to walk,
They'll soon forget their haunted nights;
their cowed
Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,—
Their dreams
that drip with murder; and they'll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter'd all their
pride….
Men who went
out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and
mad.
CRAIGLOCKHART, Oct. 1917.
JOY-BELLS
Ring your
sweet bells; but let them be farewells
To the green-vista'd gladness of the past
That changed us into soldiers; swing your
bells
To a joyful chime; but let it be the last.
What means
this metal in windy belfries hung
When guns are all our need? Dissolve these
bells
Whose tones are tuned for peace: with martial
tongue
Let them cry doom and storm the sun with
shells.
Bells are like
fierce-browed prelates who proclaim
That "if our Lord returned He'd fight
for us."
So let our bells and bishops do the same,
Shoulder to shoulder with the motor-bus.
ARMS AND THE MAN
Young Croesus
went to pay his call
On Colonel Sawbones, Caxton Hall:
And, though his wound was healed and mended,
He hoped he'd get his leave extended.
The
waiting-room was dark and bare.
He eyed a neat-framed notice there
Above the fireplace hung to show
Disabled heroes where to go
For arms and legs; with scale of price,
And words of dignified advice
How officers could get them free.
Elbow or
shoulder, hip or knee,—
Two arms, two
legs, though all were lost,
They'd be restored him free of cost.
Then a
Girl-Guide looked in to say,
"Will Captain Croesus come this
way?"
WHEN I'M AMONG A BLAZE OF LIGHTS …
When I'm among
a blaze of lights,
With tawdry music and cigars
And women dawdling through delights,
And officers at cocktail bars,—
Sometimes I
think of garden nights
And elm trees nodding at the stars.
I dream of a
small firelit room
With yellow candles burning straight,
And glowing pictures in the gloom,
And kindly books that hold me late.
Of things like these I love to think
When I can never be alone:
Then some one says, "Another
drink?"—
And turns my
living heart to stone.
THE KISS
To these I
turn, in these I trust;
Brother Lead and Sister Steel.
To his blind power I make appeal;
I guard her beauty clean from rust.
He spins and
burns and loves the air,
And splits a skull to win my praise;
But up the nobly marching days
She glitters naked, cold and fair.
Sweet Sister,
grant your soldier this;
That in good fury he may feel
The body where he sets his heel
Quail from your downward darting kiss.
THE TOMBSTONE-MAKER
He primmed his
loose red mouth, and leaned his head
Against a sorrowing angel's breast, and said:
"You'd think so much bereavement would
have made
Unusual big demands upon my trade.
The War comes cruel hard on some poor folk—
Unless the
fighting stops I'll soon be broke."
He eyed the
Cemetery across the road—
"There's
scores of bodies out abroad, this while,
That should be here by rights; they little
know'd
How they'd get buried in such wretched
style."
I told him,
with a sympathetic grin,
That Germans boil dead soldiers down for fat;
And he was horrified. "What shameful sin!
O sir, that Christian men should come to
that!"
THE ONE-LEGGED MAN
Propped on a
stick he viewed the August weald;
Squat orchard trees and oasts with painted
cowls;
A homely, tangled hedge, a corn-stooked field,
With sound of barking dogs and farmyard fowls.
And he'd come
home again to find it more
Desirable than ever it was before.
How right it seemed that he should reach the
span
Of comfortable years allowed to man!
Splendid to
eat and sleep and choose a wife,
Safe with his wound, a citizen of life.
He hobbled blithely through the garden gate,
And thought; "Thank God they had to
amputate!"
RETURN OF THE HEROES
A lady watches from the crowd,
Enthusiastic, flushed, and proud.
"Oh!
there's Sir Henry Dudster! Such a splendid leader!
How pleased he looks! What rows of ribbons on
his tunic!
Such dignity…. Saluting…. (Wave your flag …
now, Freda!)…
Yes, dear, I
saw a Prussian General once,—at Munich.
"Here's
the next carriage!… Jack was once in Leggit's Corps;
That's him!… I think the stout one is Sir
Godfrey Stoomer.
They must feel sad to know they can't win any
more
Great victories!… Aren't they glorious men?…
so full of humour!"
III
TWELVE MONTHS AFTER
Hullo! here's
my platoon, the lot I had last year.
"The War'll be over soon."
"What
'opes?"
"No bloody fear!"
Then, "Number Seven, 'shun! All present
and correct."
They're standing in the sun, impassive and
erect.
Young Gibson with his grin; and Morgan, tired
and white;
Jordan, who's out to win a D.C.M. some night:
And Hughes that's keen on wiring; and Davies
('79),
Who always must be firing at the Boche front
line.
* * * * *
"Old
soldiers never die; they simply fide a-why!"
That's what they used to sing along the roads
last spring;
That's what they used to say before the push
began;
That's where they are to-day, knocked over to
a man.
TO ANY DEAD OFFICER
Well, how are
things in Heaven? I wish you'd say,
Because I'd like to know that you're all
right.
Tell me, have you found everlasting day,
Or been sucked in by everlasting night?
For when I shut my eyes your face shows plain;
I hear you make some cheery old remark—
I can rebuild
you in my brain,
Though you've gone out patrolling in the
dark.
You hated
tours of trenches; you were proud
Of nothing more than having good years to
spend;
Longed to get home and join the careless crowd
Of chaps who work in peace with Time for
friend.
That's all washed out now. You're beyond the
wire:
No earthly chance can send you crawling
back;
You've finished with machine-gun fire—
Knocked over in a hopeless dud-attack.
Somehow I
always thought you'd get done in,
Because you were so desperate keen to live:
You were all out to try and save your skin,
Well knowing how much the world had got to
give.
You joked at shells and talked the usual
"shop,"
Stuck to your dirty job and did it fine:
With "Jesus Christ! when will it stop?
Three years…. It's hell unless we break
their line."
So when they
told me you'd been left for dead
I wouldn't believe them, feeling it must be
true.
Next week the bloody Roll of Honour said
"Wounded and missing"—(That's the
thing to do
When lads are left in shell-holes dying slow,
With nothing but blank sky and wounds that
ache,
Moaning for water till they know
It's night, and then it's not worth while to
wake!)
* * * * *
Good-bye, old
lad! Remember me to God,
And tell Him that our Politicians swear
They won't give in till Prussian Rule's been
trod
Under the Heel of England…. Are you there?…
Yes … and the
War won't end for at least two years;
But we've got stacks of men … I'm blind with
tears,
Staring into the dark. Cheero!
I wish they'd killed you in a decent show.
SICK LEAVE
When I'm
asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,—
They come, the
homeless ones, the noiseless dead.
While the dim charging breakers of the storm
Bellow and drone and rumble overhead,
Out of the gloom they gather about my bed.
They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are
mine.
"Why are you here with all your watches
ended?
From Ypres to Frise we sought you in the
Line."
In bitter safety I awake, unfriended;
And while the dawn begins with slashing rain
I think of the Battalion in the mud.
"When are you going out to them again?
Are they not still your brothers through our
blood?"
BANISHMENT
I am banished
from the patient men who fight.
They smote my heart to pity, built my pride.
Shoulder to aching shoulder, side by side,
They trudged away from life's broad wealds of
light.
Their wrongs were mine; and ever in my sight
They went arrayed in honour. But they died,—
Not one by
one: and mutinous I cried
To those who sent them out into the night.
The darkness
tells how vainly I have striven
To free them from the pit where they must
dwell
In outcast gloom convulsed and jagged and
riven
By grappling guns. Love drove me to rebel.
Love drives me back to grope with them through
hell;
And in their tortured eyes I stand forgiven.
AUTUMN
October's
bellowing anger breaks and cleaves
The bronzed battalions of the stricken wood
In whose lament I hear a voice that grieves
For battle's fruitless harvest, and the feud
Of outraged men. Their lives are like the
leaves
Scattered in flocks of ruin, tossed and blown
Along the westering furnace flaring red.
O martyred youth and manhood overthrown,
The burden of your wrongs is on my head.
REPRESSION OF WAR EXPERIENCE
Now light the
candles; one; two; there's a moth;
What silly beggars they are to blunder in
And scorch their wings with glory, liquid
flame—
No, no, not
that,—it's bad to think of war,
When thoughts you've gagged all day come back
to scare you;
And it's been proved that soldiers don't go
mad
Unless they lose control of ugly thoughts
That drive them out to jabber among the trees.
Now light your
pipe; look, what a steady hand.
Draw a deep breath; stop thinking; count
fifteen,
And you're as right as rain…. Why won't it
rain?…
I wish there'd
be a thunder-storm to-night,
With bucketsful of water to sluice the dark,
And make the roses hang their dripping heads.
Books; what a
jolly company they are,
Standing so quiet and patient on their
shelves,
Dressed in dim brown, and black, and white,
and green
And every kind of colour. Which will you read?
Come on; O do read something; they're so wise.
I tell you all the wisdom of the world
Is waiting for you on those shelves; and yet
You sit and gnaw your nails, and let your pipe
out,
And listen to the silence: on the ceiling
There's one big, dizzy moth that bumps and
flutters;
And in the breathless air outside the house
The garden waits for something that delays.
There must be crowds of ghosts among the
trees,—
Not people
killed in battle,—they're in France,—
But horrible
shapes in shrouds—old men who died
Slow, natural deaths,—old men with ugly souls,
Who wore their bodies out with nasty sins.
* * * * *
You're quiet
and peaceful, summering safe at home;
You'd never think there was a bloody war on!…
O yes, you
would … why, you can hear the guns.
Hark! Thud, thud, thud,—quite soft … they
never cease—
Those
whispering guns—O Christ, I want to go out
And screech at them to stop—I'm going crazy;
I'm going stark, staring mad because of the
guns.
TOGETHER
Splashing
along the boggy woods all day,
And over brambled hedge and holding clay,
I shall not think of him:
But when the watery fields grow brown and dim,
And hounds have lost their fox, and horses
tire,
I know that he'll be with me on my way
Home through the darkness to the evening fire.
He's jumped
each stile along the glistening lanes;
His hand will be upon the mud-soaked reins;
Hearing the saddle creak,
He'll wonder if the frost will come next week.
I shall forget him in the morning light;
And while we gallop on he will not speak:
But at the stable-door he'll say good-night.
THE HAWTHORN TREE
Not much to me
is yonder lane
Where I go every day;
But when there's been a shower of rain
And hedge-birds whistle gay,
I know my lad that's out in France
With fearsome things to see
Would give his eyes for just one glance
At our white hawthorn tree.
* * * * *
Not much to me
is yonder lane
Where he so longs to tread;
But when there's been a shower of rain
I think I'll never weep again
Until I've heard he's dead.
CONCERT PARTY
(EGYPTIAN BASE CAMP)
They are gathering
round …
Out of the
twilight; over the grey-blue sand,
Shoals of low-jargoning men drift inward to
the sound,—
The jangle and
throb of a piano … tum-ti-tum …
Drawn by a
lamp, they come
Out of the glimmering lines of their tents,
over the shuffling sand.
O sing us the
songs, the songs of our own land,
You warbling ladies in white.
Dimness conceals the hunger in our faces,
This wall of faces risen out of the night,
These eyes that keep their memories of the
places
So long beyond their sight.
Jaded and gay,
the ladies sing; and the chap in brown
Tilts his grey hat; jaunty and lean and pale,
He rattles the keys … some actor-bloke from
town …
"God send
you home"; and then "A long, long trail"; "I hear you
catting me"; and "Dixieland" … Sing slowly … now the chorus …
one by one We hear them, drink them; till the concert's done. Silent, I watch
the shadowy mass of soldiers stand. Silent, they drift away, over the
glimmering sand.
KANTARA, April, 1918.
NIGHT ON THE CONVOY
(ALEXANDRIA-MARSEILLES)
Out in the
blustering darkness, on the deck
A gleam of stars looks down. Long blurs of
black,
The lean Destroyers, level with our track,
Plunging and stealing, watch the perilous way
Through backward racing seas and caverns of
chill spray.
One sentry by
the davits, in the gloom
Stands mute; the boat heaves onward through
the night.
Shrouded is every chink of cabined light:
And sluiced by floundering waves that hiss and
boom
And crash like guns, the troop-ship shudders …
doom.
Now something at
my feet stirs with a sigh;
And slowly growing used to groping dark,
I know that the hurricane-deck, down all its
length,
Is heaped and spread with lads in sprawling
strength,—
Blanketed
soldiers sleeping. In the stark
Danger of life at war, they lie so still,
All prostrate and defenceless, head by head …
And I remember
Arras, and that hill
Where dumb with pain I stumbled among the
dead.
* * * * *
We are going
home. The troop-ship, in a thrill
Of fiery-chamber'd anguish, throbs and rolls.
We are going home … victims … three thousand
souls.
May, 1918.
A LETTER HOME
(To Robert Graves)
I
Here I'm
sitting in the gloom
Of my quiet attic room.
France goes rolling all around,
Fledged with forest May has crowned.
And I puff my pipe, calm-hearted,
Thinking how the fighting started,
Wondering when we'll ever end it,
Back to Hell with Kaiser send it,
Gag the noise, pack up and go,
Clockwork soldiers in a row.
I've got better things to do
Than to waste my time on you.
II
Robert, when I
drowse to-night,
Skirting lawns of sleep to chase
Shifting dreams in mazy light,
Somewhere then I'll see your face
Turning back to bid me follow
Where I wag my arms and hollo,
Over hedges hasting after
Crooked smile and baffling laughter,
Running tireless, floating, leaping,
Down your web-hung woods and valleys,
Garden glooms and hornbeam alleys,
Where the glowworm stars are peeping,
Till I find you, quiet as stone
On a hill-top all alone,
Staring outward, gravely pondering
Jumbled leagues of hillock-wandering.
III
You and I have
walked together
In the starving winter weather.
We've been glad because we knew
Time's too short and friends are few.
We've been sad because we missed
One whose yellow head was kissed
By the gods, who thought about him
Till they couldn't do without him.
Now he's here again; I've seen
Soldier David dressed in green,
Standing in a wood that swings
To the madrigal he sings.
He's come back, all mirth and glory,
Like the prince in a fairy story.
Winter called him far away;
Blossoms bring him home with May.
IV
Well, I know
you'll swear it's true
That you found him decked in blue
Striding up through morning-land
With a cloud on either hand.
Out in Wales, you'll say, he marches
Arm-in-arm with oaks and larches;
Hides all night in hilly nooks,
Laughs at dawn in tumbling brooks.
Yet, it's certain, here he teaches
Outpost-schemes to groups of beeches.
And I'm sure, as here I stand,
That he shines through every land,
That he sings in every place
Where we're thinking of his face.
V
Robert,
there's a war in France;
Everywhere men bang and blunder,
Sweat and swear and worship Chance,
Creep and blink through cannon thunder.
Rifles crack and bullets flick,
Sing and hum like hornet-swarms.
Bones are smashed and buried quick.
Yet, through stunning battle storms.
All the while I watch the spark
Lit to guide me; for I know
Dreams will triumph, though the dark
Scowls above me where I go.
You can hear
me; you can mingle
Radiant folly with my jingle,
War's a joke for me and you
While we know such dreams are true!
RECONCILIATION
When you are
standing at your hero's grave,
Or near some homeless village where he died,
Remember, through your heart's rekindling
pride,
The German soldiers who were loyal and brave.
Men fought
like brutes; and hideous things were done:
And you have nourished hatred, harsh and
blind.
But in that Golgotha perhaps you'll find
The mothers of the men who killed your son.
November, 1918.
MEMORIAL TABLET
(GREAT WAR)
Squire nagged
and bullied till I went to fight
(Under Lord Derby's scheme). I died in hell—
(They called
it Passchendaele); my wound was slight,
And I was hobbling back, and then a shell
Burst slick upon the duck-boards; so I fell
Into the bottomless mud, and lost the light.
In
sermon-time, while Squire is in his pew,
He gives my gilded name a thoughtful stare;
For though low down upon the list, I'm there:
"In proud and glorious
memory"—that's my due.
Two bleeding years I fought in France for
Squire;
I suffered anguish that he's never guessed;
Once I came home on leave; and then went west.
What greater glory could a man desire?
THE DEATH-BED
He drowsed and
was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep,—
Silence and
safety; and his mortal shore
Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.
Some one was
holding water to his mouth.
He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot
The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
Water—calm, sliding green above the weir;
Water—a sky-lit alley for his boat,
Bird-voiced, and bordered with reflected
flowers
And shaken hues of summer: drifting down,
He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and
slept.
Night, with a
gust of wind, was in the ward,
Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.
Night. He was blind; he could not see the
stars
Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;
Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,
Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.
Rain; he could
hear it rustling through the dark;
Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;
Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers
That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that
sweeps
Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace
Gently and slowly washing life away.
* * * * *
He stirred,
shifting his body; then the pain
Leaped like a prowling beast, and gripped and
tore
His groping dreams with grinding claws and
fangs.
But some one was beside him; soon he lay
Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.
And Death, who'd stepped toward him, paused
and stared.
Light many
lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to
live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He's young; he hated war; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?
But Death
replied: "I choose him." So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.
AFTERMATH
Have you
forgotten yet?…
For the
world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked awhile at the crossing of
city ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled
with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heavens of life; and
you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy
to spare.
But the past
is just the same,—and War's a bloody game,…
Have you
forgotten yet?…
Look down, and
swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.
Do you
remember the dark months you held the sector at Mametz,—
The nights you
watched and wired and dug and piled sandbags on parapets?
Do you remember the rats; and the stench
Of corpses rotting in front of the front-line
trench,—
And dawn
coming, dirty-white, and chill with a hopeless rain?
Do you ever stop and ask, "Is it all
going to happen again?"
Do you
remember that hour of din before the attack,—
And the anger,
the blind compassion that seized and shook you then
As you peered at the doomed and haggard faces
of your men?
Do you remember the stretcher-cases lurching
back
With dying eyes and lolling heads,—those
ashen-grey
Masks of the lads who once were keen and kind
and gay?
Have you
forgotten yet?… Look up, and swear by the green of the Spring that you'll never
forget.
SONG-BOOKS OF THE WAR
In fifty
years, when peace outshines
Remembrance of the battle lines,
Adventurous lads will sigh and cast
Proud looks upon the plundered past.
On summer morn or winter's night,
Their hearts will kindle for the fight,
Reading a snatch of soldier-song,
Savage and jaunty, fierce and strong;
And through the angry marching rhymes
Of blind regret and haggard mirth,
They'll envy us the dazzling times
When sacrifice absolved our earth.
Some ancient
man with silver locks
Will lift his weary face to say:
"War was a fiend who stopped our clocks
Although we met him grim and gay."
And then he'll speak of Haig's last drive,
Marvelling that any came alive
Out of the shambles that men built
And smashed, to cleanse the world of guilt.
But the boys, with grin and sidelong glance,
Will think, "Poor grandad's day is
done."
And dream of lads who fought in France
And lived in time to share the fun.
EVERYONE SANG
Everyone
suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark green fields; on; on; and
out of sight.
Everyone's
voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears and horror
Drifted away … O but every one
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the
singing will never be done.