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Overview
The lives, deaths, poetry, diaries and extracts from letters of sixty-six soldier-poets are brought together in this limited edition of Anne Powell's unique anthology; a fitting commemoration for the centenary of the First World War. These poems are not simply the works of well-known names such as Wilfred Owen – though they are represented – they have been painstakingly collected from a multitude of sources, and the relative obscurity of some of the voices makes the message all the more moving. Moreover, all but five of these soldiers lie within forty-five miles of Arras. Their deaths are described here in chronological order, with an account of each man's last battle. This in itself provides a revealing gradual change in the poetry from early naïve patriotism to despair about the human race and the bitterness of 'Dulce et Decorum Est'.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780752480367 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 10/06/2014 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 492 |
| File size: | 3 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
A Deep Cry
Soldier-Poets Killed on the Western Front
By Anne Powell
The History Press
Copyright © 2014 Anne PowellAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-8036-7
CHAPTER 1
1915
LIEUTENANT ROBERT WILLIAM STERLING
1st Battalion Royal Scots Fusiliers.
Born: 19 November 1893. Glasgow.
Educated: Glasgow Academy Sedbergh School. Pembroke College, Oxford.
Killed: 23rd April 1915. Aged 22 years.
Dickebusch New Military Cemetery, Belgium.
Robert Sterling gained a Classical Scholarship to Pembroke College, Oxford in 1912, and two years later won the Newdigate Prize with his poem 'The Burial of Sophocles'. Shortly afterwards War was declared and his career at Oxford ended. His love for Oxford is reflected in six out of the nine poems he wrote between 1913 and 1915 praising the University and his College:
TO PEMBROKE COLLEGE
Full often, with a cloud about me shed
Of phantoms numberless, I have alone
Wander'd in Ancient Oxford marvelling:
Calling the storied stone to yield its dead:
And I have seen the sunlight richly thrown
On spire and patient turret, conjuring
Old glass to marled beauty with its kiss,
And making blossom all the foison sown
Through lapsed years. I've felt the deeper bliss
Of eve calm-brooding o'er her loved care,
And tingeing her one all-embosoming tone.
And I have dream'd on thee, thou college fair,
Dearest to me of all, until I seem'd
Sunk in the very substance that I dream'd.
And oh! methought that this whole edifice,
Forg'd in the spirit and the fires that burn
Out of that past of splendent histories,
Up-towering yet, fresh potency might learn,
And to new summits turn,
Vaunting the banner still of what hath been and is.
Sterling was commissioned in the Royal Scots Fusiliers and sent to Scotland for training. He arrived in the Ypres area in February 1915 and the Battalion was in and out of trenches at St. Eloi. A few weeks later a close friend arrived unexpectedly at the billets at Reninghelst. Sterling wrote:
As always we didn't know who was going to relieve us, and we were sitting in our quarters – what remained of the shell-shattered lodge of the chateau, playing cards by candle-light, awaiting events ...
The two friends walked for an hour and a half in the chateau grounds with stray bullets from the firing-line whistling around them. Ten days later his friend was killed and Sterling recalled their last meeting:
I had no idea I was afterwards going to treasure every incident as a precious memory all my life. I think I should go mad, if I didn't still cherish some faith in the justice of things, and a vague but confident belief that death cannot end great friendships.
LINES WRITTEN IN THE TRENCHES
I
Ah! Hate like this would freeze our human tears,
And stab the morning star:
Not it, not it commands and mourns and bears
The storm and bitter glory of red war.
II
To J.H.S.M., killed in action, March 13th, 1915.
O Brother, I have sung no dirge for thee:
Nor for all time to come
Can song reveal my grief's infinity:
The menace of thy silence made me dumb.
After six weeks at the front Sterling wrote:
I have had a comparatively easy time of it so far. My worst experience was a half hour's shelling when the enemy's artillery caught me with a platoon of men digging a trench in the open. On another occasion one of our trenches was blown up by a mine and lost us 60 men, but the Germans who attempted an attack at the time were quickly repulsed, and hardly any of them got back alive to their own trench.
THE ROUND
Crown of the morning
Laid on the toiler:
Joy to the heart
Hope-rich.
Treasure behind left;
Riches before him,
Treasur'd in toil,
To glean.
Starlit and hushful
Wearily homeward:
Rest to the brow
Toil-stain'd.
At the beginning of April 1915, Sterling was sent to hospital at Ypres suffering from influenza; this hospital and the subsequent one at Poperinghe, were shelled and he was sent on to Le Tréport.
The Second Battle of Ypres started on 14th April, 1915 and the town was completely destroyed during the German bombardment which continued for almost a month. Sterling rejoined his battalion and wrote to a friend on 18th April:
... I've been longing for some link with the normal universe detached from the storm. It is funny how trivial instances sometimes are seized as symbols by the memory; but I did find such a link about three weeks ago. We were in trenches in woody country (just S.E. of Ypres). The Germans were about eighty yards away, and between the trenches lay pitiful heaps of dead friends and foes. Such trees as were left standing were little more than stumps, both behind our lines and the enemy's. The enemy had just been shelling our reserve trenches, and a Belgian Battery behind us had been replying, when there fell a few minutes' silence; and I, still crouching expectantly in the trench, suddenly saw a pair of thrushes building a nest in a "bare ruin'd choir" of a tree, only about five yards behind our line. At the same time a lark began to sing in the sky above the German trenches. It seemed almost incredible at the time, but now, whenever I think of those nest-builders and that all but "sightless song", they seem to represent in some degree the very essence of the Normal and Unchangeable Universe carrying on unhindered and careless amid the corpses and the bullets and the madness ...
In his History of the Royal Scots Fusiliers, John Buchan wrote of what happened to the 1st Battalion who had been in the Ypres Salient with the 28th Division "suffering much from mines and shellfire and mud:"
On 20th April the Division held the front from north-east of Zonnebeke to the Polygon Wood, with the Canadians on its left and the Twenty-seventh Division on its right. On the 17th, Hill 60, at the southern re-entrant of the salient, had been taken and held, and on the 20th there began a bombardment of the town of Ypres with heavy shells, which seemed to augur an enemy advance. On the night of the 22nd, in pleasant spring weather, the Germans launched the first gas attack in the campaign, which forced the French behind the canal and made a formidable breach in the Allied line. Then followed the heroic stand of the Canadians, who stopped the breach, the fight of 'Geddes's Detachment', the shortening of the British line, and the long-drawn torture of the three weeks' action which we call the Second Battle of Ypres. The front of the Twenty-eighth Division was not the centre of the fiercest fighting, and the 1st Royal Scots Fusiliers were not engaged in any of the greatest episodes. But till the battle died away in early June they had their share of losses. On 22nd April Second Lieutenant Wallner was killed in an attack on their trenches, and next day Second Lieutenant R.W. Sterling, a young officer of notable promise, fell, after holding a length of trench all day with 15 men ...
LIEUTENANT WALTER SCOTT STUART LYON
9th Battalion Royal Scots.
Born: 1st October 1886. North Berwick.
Educated: Haileybury College.
Balliol College, Oxford.
Killed: 8th May 1915. Aged 28 years.
Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, Ypres, Belgium.
Walter Lyon graduated in Law at Edinburgh University in 1912 and became an advocate. The Balliol College War Memorial Book records that:
... he was extremely silent and reserved, and probably suffered a good deal from solitude ... He is said to have been the first member of the Scottish Bar to fall in the war, and even the first advocate to fall in action since Flodden Field ...
Lyon joined the Royal Scots before the War. He arrived in Belgium with the Battalion at the end of February 1915; after a few weeks behind the lines at L'Abeele and Dickebusch he went to trenches in Glencorse Wood, Westhoek near Ypres. On 9th, 10th and 11th April Lyon wrote two poems from 'Mon Privilège', his dug-out:
EASTER AT YPRES: 1915
The sacred Head was bound and diapered,
The sacred Body wrapped in charnel shroud,
And hearts were breaking, hopes that towered were bowed,
And life died quite when died the living Word.
So lies this ruined city. She hath heard
The rush of foes brutal and strong and proud,
And felt their bolted fury. She is ploughed
With fire and steel, and all her grace is blurred.
But with the third sun rose the Light indeed,
Calm and victorious though with brows yet marred
By Hell's red flame so lately visited.
Nor less for thee, sweet city, better starred
Than this grim hour portends, new times succeed;
And thou shalt reawake, though aye be scarred.
LINES WRITTEN IN A FIRE TRENCH
'Tis midnight, and above the hollow trench
Seen through a gaunt wood's battle-blasted trunks
And the stark rafters of a shattered grange,
The quiet sky hangs huge and thick with stars.
And through the vast gloom, murdering its peace,
Guns bellow and their shells rush swishing ere
They burst in death and thunder, or they fling
Wild jangling spirals round the screaming air.
Bullets whine by, and maxims drub like drums,
And through the heaped confusion of all sounds
One great gun drives its single vibrant "Broum."
And scarce five score of paces from the wall
Of piled sand-bags and barb-toothed nets of wire
(So near and yet what thousand leagues away)
The unseen foe both adds and listens to
The selfsame discord, eyed by the same stars.
Deep darkness hides the desolated land,
Save where a sudden flare sails up and bursts
In whitest glare above the wilderness,
And for one instant lights with lurid pallor
The tense, packed faces in the black redoubt.
In the early hours of the morning of 16th April 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres, Lyon wrote 'On a Grave in a Trench inscribed "English killed for the Patrie"', and a few days later from the trenches in Glencorse Wood he wrote 'I tracked a dead man down a trench'.
ON A GRAVE IN A TRENCH INSCRIBED "ENGLISH KILLED FOR THE PATRIE"
You fell on Belgian land,
And by a Frenchman's hand
Were buried. Now your fate
A kinsman doth relate.
Three names meet in this trench:
Belgian, English, French;
Three names, but one the fight
For Freedom, Law and Light.
And you in that crusade
Alive were my comrade
And theirs, the dead whose names
Shine like immortal flames.
And though unnamed you be,
Oh "Killed for the Patrie",
In honour's lap you lie
Sealed of their company.
I TRACKED A DEAD MAN DOWN A TRENCH
I tracked a dead man down a trench,
I knew not he was dead.
They told me he had gone that way,
And there his foot-marks led.
The trench was long and close and curved,
It seemed without an end;
And as I threaded each new bay
I thought to see my friend.
I went there stooping to the ground.
For, should I raise my head,
Death watched to spring; and how should then
A dead man find the dead?
At last I saw his back. He crouched
As still as still could be,
And when I called his name aloud
He did not answer me.
The floor-way of the trench was wet
Where he was crouching dead;
The water of the pool was brown,
And round him it was red.
I stole up softly where he stayed
With head hung down all slack,
And on his shoulders laid my hands
And drew him gently back.
And then, as I had guessed, I saw
His head, and how the crown –
I saw then why he crouched so still,
And why his head hung down.
At the beginning of May 1915 the 9th Battalion Royal Scots was alternately in trenches near Potijze Wood, south of the Menin Road, and in dug-outs only 200 yards from the firing-line inside the Wood. The History of The Royal Scots records:
... on the 8th May the heaviest bombardment we had ever experienced broke out ... The shelling was terrific; from early morning till dark high explosives and shrapnel rained through the wood. Fine old trees fell torn to the roots by a coal-box; tops of others were sliced by shrapnel, and their new year's greenery died early: the whole wood became a scene of tragic devastation. Far worse than that, the stream of wounded became uninterrupted. We ourselves lost our first officer killed – Lieutenant Lyon ...
CAPTAIN THE HONOURABLE COLWYN ERASMUS ARNOLD PHILIPPS
Royal Horse Guards.
Born: 11th December 1888. London.
Educated: Eton College.
Killed: 13th May 1915. Aged 26 years.
Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, Ypres, Belgium.
Colwyn Philipps was the eldest son of Lord and Lady St. Davids. He was commissioned in the Royal Horse Guards in October 1908. Most of his light verse was written before the War.
Philipps arrived in billets at Verlorenhoek, in the Ypres Salient, on 4th November 1914; the Battalion was in support trenches at Hooge and Zwarte-Leen and then in the front line. In a letter home dated 10th November, Philipps wrote an account of his 'first battle':
... We were ordered to relieve some troops in the advanced trench. We rode about six miles, then dismounted, leaving some men with the horses, and walked about five miles to the trenches. As we went through the first village, we got heavily shelled by the famous Black Marias; they make a noise just like an express train and burst like a clap of thunder, you hear them coming for ten seconds before they burst. It was very unpleasant, and you need to keep a hold on yourself to prevent ducking – most of the men duck.
Most of the shells hit the roofs, but one burst in the road in front of me, killing one man and wounding four or five. However, once we got out of the village they stopped, and we arrived at the trenches in the dark of the evening. We filed quietly into them and waited in the darkness. We stayed there two days and nights, being shelled most of the time. The German trenches were about 1600 yards away, with Maxim guns. They never showed their noses by daylight, and the guns were miles away. We never fired a shot all the time. They only once hit the trench, wounding two men, but about fifty shells pitched within a few yards. They set fire to a large farm a hundred yards behind us that made a glorious blaze. The Frenchmen on our right and left kept up intermittent bursts of rifle-fire. This did no good and gave away the position of their trenches, so they got more shelled than we did. We have now come out and are billeted in a farm ten miles behind the trenches. We had dozens of guns behind our trenches, but they seemed to have little or no effect on keeping down the German fire. Now about tips. – Dig, never mind if the men are tired, always dig. Make trenches as narrow as possible, with no parapet if possible; dig them in groups of eight or ten men, and join up later, leave large traverses. Once you have got your deep narrow trench you can widen out the bottom, but don't hollow out too much, as a Maria shakes the ground for a hundred yards and will make the whole thing fall in. Don't allow any movement or heads to show, or any digging or going to the rear in the daytime. All that can be done at night or in the mists of morning that are heavy and last till 8 or 9 a.m. Always carry wire and always put wire forty yards in front of the trench, not more. One trip wire will do if you have no time for more. The Germans often rush at night and the knowledge of wire gives the men confidence. Don't shoot unless you have a first-rate target, and don't ever shoot from the trenches at aeroplanes – remember that the whole thing is concealment, and then again concealment. Never give the order 'fire' without stating the number of rounds, as otherwise you will never stop them again; you can't be too strict about this in training. On the whole I don't think gun-fire is alarming, but from what I see of others it has an awfully wearing effect on the nerves after a time ...
Philipps had leave in England in December 1914 and in February 1915. After he rejoined the Battalion in the Ypres Salient he wrote on 12th March, to his mother:
People out here seem to think that the war is going to be quite short, why, I don't know; personally, I see nothing here to prevent it going on for ever. We never attack the Germans, and simply do our utmost to maintain ourselves; when we seem to advance it is really that the Germans have evacuated the place. Someone once said that war was utter boredom for months interspersed by moments of acute terror – the boredom is a fact ... Except for a belt of about twelve miles where the battle is being waged, the whole country shows hardly a sign of war. In many places the inhabitants return the day after the battle ... We have had a lot of fighting all in trenches and look like having more ... The other day we were evacuating some trenches and the question was if we could cross a piece of much-shelled ground safely – i.e., Was it under direct observation of their gunners? 'Send on one troop and see' was the order. I was first, and I saw the men's faces look rather long. I had no cigarettes, so I took a ration biscuit in one hand and a lump of cheese in the other and retired eating these in alternate mouthfuls to 'restore confidence'. We escaped without a shell, but I almost choked myself! It looks to me as if we shall have a busy time now ...
On 26th April, twelve days after the start of the Second Battle of Ypres, Philipps wrote from Vlamertinghe:
This is a baby letter actually written in battle. Lord knows when it will be posted ... I will write to you again when we finish this fight. We have just been moved up in support of the Canadians and may go into the line any time – a whole brigade of us is sitting by the road awaiting orders.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Deep Cry by Anne Powell. Copyright © 2014 Anne Powell. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Epigraph,
Acknowledgments.,
Introduction.,
The Soldier-Poets in chronological order of their death.,
Map: 1. North-East France and Belgium – General.,
1915,
1916,
1917,
1918,
Alphabetical list of Soldier-Poets and Poems.,
Dates of Major Battles on the Western Front.,
Map: 2. a. Ypres Group – Cemeteries.,
b. Ypres Region.,
3. a. Arras Group – Cemeteries.,
b. Arras Region.,
4. a. Somme Group – Cemeteries.,
b. Somme Region.,
5. a. Cambrai Group – Cemeteries.,
b. Cambrai Region.,
6. St. Quentin Region.,
Appendices:,
A. List of Regiments.,
B. List of Cemeteries and Memorials.,
Bibliography.,
Copyright,
Maps 1–5 by David Goudge.,
Map 6 by Jeremy Powell.,