REMEMBRANCE – TWO FIRST WORLD WAR POETS

At this time of national remembrance, two poems have been selected from the various works of the war poets, as part of an act of remembering.

Firstly Rupert Brooke’s poem; ”The Soldier”. This  was written in 1915 not long before he set sail with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force on February 28^th, 1915 for the theatre of war that included the disaster at Gallipoli ( the Dardanelles Campaign).  Sadly he didn’t make it and suffered a mosquito bite which caused pneumococcal sepsis and death. He was buried in an olive grove in Skyros Greece. He was 27.

On 11 November 1985, Brooke was among 16 First World War poets commemorated on a slate monument unveiled in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. The inscription on the stone was written by a fellow war poet, Wilfred Owen. It reads: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."

Rupert Brooke was celebrated on a postage stamp of a far off corner of the world – St Helena, citing this poem.

Brooke’s poem is, despite the subject, romantic and reflects on the land from which he was sailing, rather than the conflict he was moving towards. Some critics complained of naivety and sentimentality.

The Soldier (1915)

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.

Wilfred Owen was quite a different poet. His work was very much of the moment, it was earthy, raw and brutal. You can almost hear the sound of gunfire and the horror of the trenches.  But he did write some of the best poetry of World War 1 and composed between 1917 and 1918. He was commissioned as an officer in Manchester Regiment and left for France in December 1916, but by March he was in an Edinburgh hospital recovering from Shell shock among other things. He returned to the front line in May 1918 and was killed in action in November 1918 – just one week before the Armistice. He was 25. Owen was awarded the Military Cross. Like Brooke he is commemorated in Poets Corner, Westminster Abbey..  This poem was also celebrated in a British stamp issue of 2018 and recalls the opening two lines.

Anthem for Doomed Youth 1917 (published posthumously in 1920)

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?

Only the monstrous anger of the guns.

Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle

Can patter out their hasty orisons.

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –

The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.

The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;

Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,

And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.

Both of these poems were read at  the Service in Westminster Abbey, held on November 11^th, 1985 , at which the memorial tablet of all the war poets was unveiled.

Submitted by Roger Verrall November 8^th, 2020