WarPoetsAssociation

The War Poets Association aims to promote interest in the work, life and historical context of poets whose subject is the experience of war.

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

@yesknow @TheFigen_ Beautiful! I recall making this journey on a motobike 57 years ago; Lima to Cuzco was a real climb; on to Puno passed lovely Lake Titicaca, highest in the world...

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

Pour out your bounty, moon of radiant shining
On all this shattered flesh, these quiet forms:
For these were slain, so strangely still reclining,
In the noblest cause was ever waged with arms.

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

"Requiem" by Ivor Gurney

Pour out your light, O stars, and do not hold
Your loveliest shining from earth's outworn shell -
Pure and cold your radiance, pure and cold
My dead friend's face as well.

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

Glad in the glory of fellowship, happy in misery, strong
In the strength that laughs at its weakness, laughs at its sorrows and fears,
Facing the world that was not too kind with a jest and a song?
What can the world hold afterwards worthy of laughter or tears? Edward de Stein

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

This is, alas, my farewell posting of WWI poems. Starting with Owen for the WOA in March 2020, then continuing daily for WPA, with Gurney, women poets, and a host of almost unknown poets, whose dedication to their country deserves recognition. Anyone else to take up the baton?

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

“Envoi”

How shall I say goodbye to you, wonderful, terrible days,
If I should live to live and leave ‘neath an alien soil
You, my men, who taught me to walk with a smile in the ways
Of the valley of shadows, taught me to know you and love you, and toil

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

Yet sing! For at thy song
The tall trees stand up straight and strong
And stretch their twisted arms.
And smoke ascends from pleasant farms
And the shy flowers their odours give.
Once more the riven pastures smile,
And for a while
We live.
Edward de Stein, France, May, 1916.

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

After Eton and Oxford, Edward de Stein, who wrote "Bingo our Trench Dog", rose to the rank of Major, serving on the Western Front for all WWI

“To a Skylark Behind Our Trenches”

Thou little voice! Thou happy sprite
How didst thou gain the air and light—
That sing'st so merrily?

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

How canst thou sing while Nature lies
Bleeding and torn beneath thine eyes,
And the foul breath
Of rank decay hangs like a shroud
Over the fields the shell hath ploughed?
How canst thou sing, so gay and glad,
Whilst all the heavens are filled with death
And all the world is mad?

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

Yet now those men lay stubborn courage by,
Riding dull-eyed and silent in the train
To old men's stools; or sell gay-coloured socks
And listen fearfully for Death; so I
Love the low-laughing girls, who now again
Go daintily, in thin and flowery frocks.

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

“War and Peace”
by Edgell Rickword

In sodden trenches I have heard men speak,
Though numb and wretched, wise and witty things;
And loved them for the stubbornness that clings
Longest to laughter when Death's pulleys creak;

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

And seeing cool nurses move on tireless feet
To do abominable things with grace,
Deemed them sweet sisters in that haunted place
Where, with child's voices, strong men howl or bleat.

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

Those who watched with hoary eyes
saw two figures gleaming there;
Hauptmann Kälte, Colonel Cold,
gaunt in the grey air.

Stiffly, tinkling spurs they moved,
glassy-eyed, with glinting heel
stabbing those who lingered there
torn by screaming steel.

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

Rickword joined the Artist Rifles as soon as he became 18, in 1916, won the MC and wrote war poetry. In 1919 he lost an eye through septicaemia, then went up to Oxford, but left after four terms to get married.

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

Visited a forward post,
left them burning, ear to foot;
fingers stuck to biting steel,
toes to frozen boot.

Stalked on into No Man’s Land,
turned the wire to fleecy wool,
iron stakes to sugar sticks
snapping at a pull.

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

Thou canst return no more;
Not as the happy time of spring
Comes after winter burgeoning
On wood and wold in folds of living green, for thou art dead.
Our tears we shed
In vain, for thou
Dost pace another shore,
Untroubled now.
Victor Perowne

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

Joining the Scots Guards when he left Eton in 1916, Perowne served the war, and became a diplomat.

“A Dirge”

Thou art no longer here,
No longer shall we see thy face,
But, in that other place,
Where may be heard
The roar of the world rushing down the wantways of the stars;

[WarPoetsAssociation @WarPoetsAssn]

Another Arcady
May thee receive.
Not here thou dost remain,
Thou art gone far away,
Where, at the portals of the day,
The hours ever dance in ring, a silvern-footed throng,

While Time looks on,
And seraphs stand
Choiring an endless strain
On either hand.