British poets of the Great War

Welcome to A2K, Freedom. That is surely one of the saddest poems I've ever read.

Siegfried Sassoon is one of my favorite poets, and this is one of my favorite Sassoon poems:

Dreamers

Soldiers are the citizens of death's grey 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.


I've never understood why Sassoon isn't as well-known as some of the other WWI poets, like Owen and Brooke. Maybe it's because he survived the war, and lived into old age, and so he isn't seen as quite the romantic figure as the poets who died young. Or maybe it's because many people are made uncomfortable by the bitterness expressed in so many of his poems, over what he saw as the mismanagement of the war by an older generation which was only too willing to throw away young men's lives without actually risking their own. This poem is one of the best examples of that:

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.


Sassoon's attitude toward religion -- specifically, representatives of organized religion who sought to sentimentalize the war -- may also have limited his popularity. I'm thinking of poems like this one:

"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 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!"


I could go on and on about Sassoon, but that's probably enough for now.

Sassoon served as an infantry officer in the Battle of the Somme, which begain in 1916. He was considered to be recklessly brave, and was decorated for taking a German trench line by himself. In 1917, he refused to return to the lines. He was not court-martialled or imprisoned, but he was finished in "polite society." It had a great impact on his career as a writer, which is a shame, as you have noted how very good he is.

He wrote a trilogy based on that experience, the Sherston triology (you might want to google it, i'm not clear on the details, it's been about 30 years since i read the first two books . . . i never made it to the third.

Great thread idea, Boss, here's my favorite:

The Great Lover

I have been so great a lover: filled my days
So proudly with the splendour of Love's praise,
The pain, the calm, and the astonishment,
Desire illimitable, and still content,
And all dear names men use, to cheat despair,
For the perplexed and viewless streams that bear
Our hearts at random down the dark of life.
Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife
Steals down, I would cheat drowsy Death so far,
My night shall be remembered for a star
That outshone all the suns of all men's days.
Shall I not crown them with immortal praise
Whom I have loved, who have given me, dared with me
High secrets, and in darkness knelt to see
The inenarrable godhead of delight?
Love is a flame; - we have beaconed the world's night.
A city: - and we have built it, these and I.
An emperor: - we have taught the world to die.
So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence,
And the high cause of Love's magnificence,
And to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names
Golden for ever, eagles, crying flames,
And set them as a banner, that men may know,
To dare the generations, burn, and blow
Out on the wind of Time, shining and streaming. . . .
These I have loved:
White plates and cups, clean-gleaming,
Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust;
Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust
Of friendly bread; and many-tasting food;
Rainbows; and the blue bitter smoke of wood;
And radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers;
And flowers themselves, that sway through sunny hours,
Dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon;
Then, the cool kindliness of sheets, that soon
Smooth away trouble; and the rough male kiss
Of blankets; grainy wood; live hair that is
Shining and free; blue-massing clouds; the keen
Unpassioned beauty of a great machine;
The benison of hot water; furs to touch;
The good smell of old clothes; and other such -
The comfortable smell of friendly fingers,
Hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers
About dead leaves and last year's ferns. . . .
Dear names,
And thousand other throng to me! Royal flames;
Sweet water's dimpling laugh from tap or spring;
Holes in the ground; and voices that do sing;
Voices in laughter, too; and body's pain,
Soon turned to peace; and the deep-panting train;
Firm sands; the little dulling edge of foam
That browns and dwindles as the wave goes home;
And washen stones, gay for an hour; the cold
Graveness of iron; moist black earthen mould;
Sleep; and high places; footprints in the dew;
And oaks; and brown horse-chestnuts, glossy-new;
And new-peeled sticks; and shining pools on grass; -
All these have been my loves. And these shall pass,
Whatever passes not, in the great hour,
Nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power
To hold them with me through the gate of Death.
They'll play deserter, turn with the traitor breath,
Break the high bond we made, and sell Love's trust
And sacramented covenant to the dust.
- Oh, never a doubt but, somewhere, I shall wake,
And give what's left of love again, and make
New friends, now strangers. . . .
But the best I've known,
Stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown
About the winds of the world, and fades from brains
Of living men, and dies.
Nothing remains.

O dear my loves, O faithless, once again
This one last gift I give: that after men
Shall know, and later lovers, far-removed,
Praise you, "All these were lovely"; say, "He loved."

Rupert Brooke, 1914.


He died of a septic disease en route to the Dardanelles, without having been in combat.

I love Rupert Brooks, Setanta. Like Byron, he wanted to die in battle, but was felled by bacteria. I can't remember the poem by Brooks that had a line in it..."....somewhere in a foreign strand...that is forever England."

Grrrrrr. Can't find it, either.

Yes, Freedom. A wonderful thread, and here is the Rupert Brooks' poem that I love:

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.

Welcome to A2K, Freedom

Freedom

You surely know this site

Lost Poets

which is part of a rather good collection of links and (online-) material from/about WWI

Propaganda Postcards

Posting these links (again) for other members, who might be interested :wink:

And wellcome to A2K, freedom!

Hey, all. Please join us in a salute to Veterans everywhere:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14896&highlight=

This thread couldn't be complete without mention of Edward Thomas, encouraged by his friend Robert Frost to write poetry, who volunteered for the war and was killed, leaving many lovely, gentle, natural, seemingly simple yet carefully crafted poems, mainly on the countryside.


Here's one of sad relevance, before he went off to fight.


IN MEMORIAM (EASTER, 1915)

The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will never do again.

)

Wilfred Owen - Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.