POETRY BLOG 27
“All Souls”

All Souls’ Day, also known as “The Commemoration of the Faithful Departed” is commemorated annually on November 2nd, although often transposed to the nearest Sunday in Churches.
It was dropped at the time of the English Reformation but reinstated in some places, in the 19th century. The Church of England formally made provision for it in 1980 and it is often seen as an extension of All Saints Day serving to remember all those who have died.
One contribution to its recognition and revival came from the Anglican response to the deaths of millions of soldiers in World War 1.

The poem I have chosen for this Blog is; “All Souls’ Day” by Frances Bellerby.
Frances Bellerby, the daughter of an Anglo-Catholic curate, was born in Bristol in 1899. She lost her only brother, who was killed in action, in 1915. It was this family loss coupled with the revival in recognition of All Souls’ which later prompted Frances to write this poem.

Her later life was sadly marred by ill-health and a marriage which did not flourish. Although she wrote novels, short stories, and poetry, she is largely unknown – and her works of poetry are not represented in the New Oxford Book of English Verse. She died in 1975.

Writing of her poetry in general, Jane Dowson 1 said, "Her poetry is imbued with a spiritual awareness encoded through the natural environment ".
The poem weaves together imaginary and remembered conversations in a subdued late-autumn setting, perhaps reliving walks with her brother as a child.
She evokes a rather mystical quality in her writing -- The sky is colourless, the “day draws no breath”. Yet, although a Christian poet, she treats religious experience rather unconventionally, and seems to have an intuitive grasp of space-time, and the possibility of other dimensions, in those wishful lines: “what the small day cannot hold / must spill into eternity.”

It is also conveys a sense of poignancy, which may well resonate with us today as we recall lost loved ones.

All Souls’ Day ²

Let’s go our old way
by the stream, and kick the leaves
as we always did, to make
the rhythm of breaking waves.

This day draws no breath –
shows no colour anywhere
except for the leaves – in their death
brilliant as never before.

Yellow of Brimstone Butterfly,
brown of Oak Eggar Moth –
you’d say. And I’d be wondering why
a summer never seems lost

if two have been together
witnessing the variousness of light,
and the same two in lustreless November
enter the year’s night…

The slow-worm stream – how still!
Above that spider’s unguarded door,
look – dull pearls…Time’s full,
brimming, can hold no more.

Next moment (we well know,
my darling, you and I)
what the small day cannot hold
must spill into eternity.

So perhaps we should move cat-soft
meanwhile, and leave everything unsaid,
until no shadow of risk can be left
of disturbing the scatheless dead.

Ah, but you were always leaf-light.
And you so seldom talk
as we go. But there at my side
through the bright leaves you walk.

And yet – touch my hand
that I may be quite without fear,
for it seems as if a mist descends,
and the leaves where you walk do not stir.

SOURCES

1 - Jane Dowson (2006). "Bellerby, Frances 1889-1975". In Faye Hammill; Esme Miskimmin; Ashlie Sponenberg (eds.). Encyclopedia of British Women's Writing, 1900-1950. Palgrave Macmillan.

2 - Selected Poems (edited by Anne Stevenson with an introduction by Robert Gittings). London: Enitharmon Press, 1986.

Contributed by Roger Verrall 22 October 2021