A thread to share the poetry of WW1...

[MagratsHair]

I know many people can't be arsed with poetry but this is not wandering through fields of flowers stuff & it deserves to be heard, both for its beauty & also for the authentic voice of the trench soldier of the Great War.

Its poetry written by those who lived in the unspeakable conditions of the trenches and its horror still resonates down through the years to me. I find that I can read all the facts about WW1 that I like & all the descriptions of the attacks & raids & military skirmishes but none of them convey the actual voice of the soldier like the poetry does.

Feel free to share your own favourites here :)

This is one by Siegfried Sassoon, called The Death Bed;

He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep.
Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

Someone was holding water to his mouth.
He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot
The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
Water-calm, sliding green above the weir.
Water-a sky-lit alley for his boat,
Bird- voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers
And shaken hues of summer; drifting down,
He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,
Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.
Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars
Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;
Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,
Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.

Rain-he could hear it rustling through the dark;
Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;
Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers
That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps
Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace,
Gently and slowly washing life away.

He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain
Leapt like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore
His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.
But someone was beside him; soon he lay
Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.
And death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.

Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He's young; he hated War; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?

But death replied: 'I choose him.' So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

There is some excellent WW 1 poetry. Am going out but will try to think of my favourite to post. I have one in mind but not sure where to find a copy

Great idea for a thread - I love Yeats Irish airman

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

And an epitaph by Kipling whose son died:

If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.

There were always lots of

Aunties

They were everywhere.

Some were real aunties -

Mum's umpteen sisters,

Dad's umpteen sisters.

There was no end to them.

Auntie Flo, Auntie Betty,

Auntie Edie, Auntie Marjorie,

Auntie Bertha, Auntie Jessie ...

The list is endless.

I won't go on

Except for Auntie Violet

My favourite auntie,

Killed on a bus in the blitz.

It seemed quite natural

Didn't give it a thought.

That was they way of the world -

Lots of old ladies everywhere.

They were called spinsters.

Some were rather quaint.

And looked down upon.

A few were slightly mad.

Then one day,

When I was grown up

It dawned on me -

First Wold War

A million men were missing

Why hadn't I thought of it before?

The men these women never met,

Never even had the chance to meet.

All Dead

These ladies were always kind,

Gentle and loving to me.

Not sour, bitter and resentful,

As they had every right to be.

A million missing men.

A million aunties.

Raymond Briggs, such a powerful poem.

This is my favourite -
Dulce et decorum est by Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our 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,
Obscene as cancer, 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.

I know it's a modern poem about WW1 but I absolutely love this one...
(mainly because I love Wilfred Owen too)

Last Post by Carol Ann Duffy

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud ...
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home -
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.

Dulce - No - Decorum - No - Pro patria mori.
You walk away.
You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too -
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert -
and light a cigarette.
There's coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.

If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.

Amazing!! Chopsy, what a brilliant cross post....so sad.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Michael Morpurgo has edited a brilliant book on WW1, it's called Only Remembered if anyone likes to read such literature.

It's fab.

This is from a song, but so sad -

I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier
I raised him to be my pride and joy
Who dares to put a rifle on his shoulder
To shoot some other mother's darling boy?

I just can't imagine what those poor mothers waiting at home went through :(

allpoetry.com/poem/8603781-Easter-Monday-by-Eleanor-Farjeon

Great thread idea.

I remember studying the war poets in school, and found it fascinating when we compared poems that were written at the start of the war - before the true horror that awaited the soldiers was really understood - to the later poems like those upthread.

This one by Jessie Pope always stuck with me as a surprising contrast to those later poems.

Whoâ??s for the game, the biggest thatâ??s played,
The red crashing game of a fight?
Whoâ??ll grip and tackle the job unafraid?
And who thinks heâ??d rather sit tight?
Whoâ??ll toe the line for the signal to â??Go!â???
Whoâ??ll give his country a hand?
Who wants a turn to himself in the show?
And who wants a seat in the stand?
Who knows it wonâ??t be a picnic â?? not much-
Yet eagerly shoulders a gun?
Who would much rather come back with a crutch
Than lie low and be out of the fun?
Come along, lads â??
But youâ??ll come on all right â??
For thereâ??s only one course to pursue,
Your country is up to her neck in a fight,
And sheâ??s looking and calling for you.

Damn MN app! OK I've taken out the punctuation so the app doesn't make it impossible to read!

Whos for the game, the biggest thats played
The red crashing game of a fight?
Wholl grip and tackle the job unafraid?
And who thinks hed rather sit tight?
Wholl toe the line for the signal to Go!?
Wholl give his country a hand?
Who wants a turn to himself in the show?
And who wants a seat in the stand?
Who knows it wonâ??t be a picnic, not much
Yet eagerly shoulders a gun?
Who would much rather come back with a crutch
Than lie low and be out of the fun?
Come along, lads
But youâ??ll come on all right
For thereâ??s only one course to pursue,
Your country is up to her neck in a fight,
And sheâ??s looking and calling for you.
Jessie Pope

These are making me cry. It's a close-run thing for me between Rupert Brook's Peace and this by Wilfred Owen.

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.

As many Mners know my son Wilf is named after Wilfred Owen who's poetry had a profound affect on me at school.
I read this poem of his (i specifically asked for a WO poem) at a WW1 remembrance day in May.

ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH.

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 good-byes.
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.

WILFRED OWEN

This is one of mine, although not directly about the war, rather its aftermath:

The Superfluous Woman by Vera Brittain

Ghosts crying down the vistas of the years,
Recalling words
Whose echoes long have died,
And kind moss grown
Over the sharp and blood-bespattered stones
Which cut our feet upon the ancient ways.

But who will look for my coming?

Long busy days where many meet and part;
Crowded aside
Remembered hours of hope;
And city streets
Grown dark and hot with eager multitudes
Hurrying homeward whither respite waits.

But who will seek me at nightfall?

Light fading where the chimneys cut the sky;
Footsteps that pass,
Nor tarry at my door.
And far away,
Behind the row of crosses, shadows black
Stretch out long arms before the smouldering sun.

But who will give me my children?

Discovered it whilst writing my dissertation on women between the wars. For me it sums up the loss of a future for a whole generation of women at a time when marriage was perhaps the most important event in many women's lives.

Great minds think alike Amethyst!

allpoetry.com/Perhaps-(To-R.A.L.)

The Falling Leaves.

Today, as I rode by,
I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree
In a still afternoon,
When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky,
But thickly, silently,
They fell, like snowflakes wiping out the noon;
And wandered slowly thence
For thinking of a gallant multitude
Which now all withering lay,
Slain by no wind of age or pestilence,
But in their beauty strewed
Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.

Magaret Postgate Cole.

I like Sassoon - he underscores the horror.

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

(Suicide in the Trenches)

Singled Out by Virginia Nicholson is about the 'superfluous' women who became the aunties

'Last Post' is amazing, thank you for posting that one.

This site is good for women's WW poetry: femalewarpoets.blogspot.co.uk/p/female-poets-of-first-world-war-revised.html

This isn't to my mind as beautiful as some of the others quoted above, but I think the sentiment behind it is amazing. I've been struggling a bit with some of the (unintentionally) upsetting comments from people about how they're 'grateful' to WWI soliders fighting 'the enemy'. It feels to me so very different from WWII - WWI is just a tragedy on both sides. And this poem captures that.

It's by Keith Douglas.

Vergissmeinnicht

Three weeks gone and the combatants gone
returning over the nightmare ground
we found the place again, and found
the soldier sprawling in the sun.

The frowning barrel of his gun
overshadowing. As we came on
that day, he hit my tank with one
like the entry of a demon.

Look. Here in the gunpit spoil
the dishonoured picture of his girl
who has put: Steffi. Vergissmeinnicht
in a copybook gothic script.

We see him almost with content,
abased, and seeming to have paid
and mocked at by his own equipment
that's hard and good when he's decayed.

But she would weep to see today
how on his skin the swart flies move;
the dust upon the paper eye
and the burst stomach like a cave.

For here the lover and killer are mingled
who had one body and one heart.
And death who had the soldier singled
has done the lover mortal hurt.

I was going to put that one, Dawndonna

Another by Margaret Postgate Cole - one that hits me more than many others:

The Veteran

We came upon him sitting in the sun
Blinded by war, and left. And past the fence
There came young soldiers from the Hand and Flower,
Asking advice of his experience.
And he said this, and that, and told them tales,
And all the nightmares of each empty head
Blew into air; then, hearing us beside,
"Poor chaps, how'd they know what it's like?" he said.
And we stood there, and watched him as he sat,
Turning his sockets where they went away,
Until it came to one of us to ask "And you're-how old?"
"Nineteen, the third of May."

Sorry Julia. I always feel that women poets get a bit of a raw deal so always try to carry the banner, if appropriate.

There's loads of ones I haven't heard before, thanks for sharing! I have an anthology that I read every November and from here on in I'll take these new ones & add them.

Here's another, its long but it speaks to me.

Strange Meeting

BY WILFRED OWEN
It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined.

Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands, as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall,—
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

With a thousand fears that vision's face was grained;
Yet no blood reached there from the upper ground,
And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan.
“Strange friend,” I said, “here is no cause to mourn.”
“None,” said that other, “save the undone years,
The hopelessness. Whatever hope is yours,
Was my life also; I went hunting wild
After the wildest beauty in the world,
Which lies not calm in eyes, or braided hair,
But mocks the steady running of the hour,
And if it grieves, grieves richlier than here.
For by my glee might many men have laughed,
And of my weeping something had been left,
Which must die now. I mean the truth untold,
The pity of war, the pity war distilled.
Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress.
None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
Courage was mine, and I had mystery;
Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery:
To miss the march of this retreating world
Into vain citadels that are not walled.
Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels,
I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
Even with truths that lie too deep for taint.
I would have poured my spirit without stint
But not through wounds; not on the cess of war.
Foreheads of men have bled where no wounds were.

“I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
I knew you in this dark: for so you frowned
Yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
I parried; but my hands were loath and cold.
Let us sleep now. . . .”