#ww1 poetry

[theworldofwars]

Canadian machine gunners on Vimy Ridge. 1917

[to-end-all-wars]

I called him, once; then listened: nothing moved:

Only my thumping heart beat out the time.

Whispering his name, I groped from room to room.

Quite empty was that house; it could not hold

His human ghost, remembered in the love

That strove in vain to be companioned still.

-Siegfried Sassoon

[westernfrontier]

“They”

The Bishop tells us: “When the boys come back They will not be the same; for they’ll have fought In a just cause: they lead the last attack On Anti-Christ; their comrades’ blood has bought New right to breed an honourable race, They have challenged Death and dared him face to face,”

“We’re none of us the same!” the boys reply. “For George lost both his legs; and Bill’s stone blind; Poor Jim’s shot through the lungs and like to die; And Bert’s gone syphilitic: you’ll not find A chap who’s served that hasn’t found some change.” And the Bishop said: “The ways of God are strange!”

- “They” by Siegfried Sassoon, 31st October 1916

[icouldmakeapun]

i have a hunch that this meme might be a little bit niche :)

i apologise to those who followed me after my percy jackson meme, i don’t think this is what you expected

[shy-attention-whore]

my sweet old etcetera, by e.e. cummings

[byronicist]

“He spins and burns and loves the air, / And splits a skull to win my praise”

Siegfried Sassoon, The Kiss (1917)

[maketheshadowsfearyou]

Remember the Horses

By Maj Mary-Ann Martinek

Wading into a raging sea All the horses swam to me From the beaches Where they’d stood alone My faithful friends Wanted to go home.

I saw them coming But not at trot I saw them struggling I saw them shot My faithful friends Turn back and flee My faithful friends Don’t swim to me.

Their strong, long legs Thundered through The salty waters They did not know The ships were faster Than the horses And soon Their familiar and determined faces Could no longer Be seen from where I stood.

But they didn’t Turn around and flee From that sea The horses swam Towards the sun They swam because They could not run They swam in company They swam abreast To their final conflict Their last test.

I watch the clouds From where I sit And remember those moments On that ship As horses shot and drowned at sea Had tried to follow And be with me They had not stopped for bullet blast Were trained too well to remain in cast By we Their masters, their mates, their friends Who were made to watch each short life end.

I watch the clouds again with love I see the horses riding above Their manes and tails flicking free All the horses had come with me Their hooves were silver and their manes were gold Some still swam to that sun of old The raging sea had not taken them Their instincts strong had found their men Because there I saw the emu plumes On slouch hatted figures amid the gloom I recognised those faces, freed Of all the men who rode with me.

From a world now peaceful and very still They rode their horses home with skill And now I know that when I die My faithful friend will be my guide With saddle ready and stirrups low My faithful friend will take me home.

Together we’ll ride the clouds of mist And remember no more The memories of those ships I’ll ride the nights with mates long gone We’ll be together, we’ll be strong The stars will fall and blanket the earth And mark our hoof prints in the turf. For we are free and ride your sky Concealed by clouds, we pass you by So little children Try to spy Our shadowy figures as we glide by For amidst the clouds In skies of red Gallop the spectres of your dead.

Source: The Australian Lighthorse Association

[crystalclaire]

NACHKLANG by ROLAND LEIGHTON

Down the long white road we walked together

Down between the grey hills and the heather,

Where the tawny-crested

Plover cries.

You seemed all brown and soft, just like a linnet,

Your errant hair had shadowed sunbeams in it,

And there shone all April

In your eyes.

With your golden voice of tears and laughter

Softened into song 'Does aught come after

Life,' you asked 'When life is

Laboured through?

What is God and all for which we're striving?'

'Sweetest sceptic, we were born for living;

Life is Love, and Love is—

You, dear, you.'

[diversifyyourliterature]

I Sit and Sew by Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson

Personally, one of my favorite genres of poetry is war time poetry, particularly from the home front. And this poem is no exception.

I Sit and Sew does an amazing job at capturing the frustrations of the women-particularly black women-during World War 1 who had to sit and watch the war efforts from a distance, bitter at the inability to help anywhere beyond the station she's expected to sit at. The repetition in this poem is done so beautifully and it really demonstrates the frustration and feelings of helplessness.

I recommend you search out this poem (as well as look into Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson as a person! She lived a fascinating life and worked hard as a social activist. There's also documentation of her having both male and female partners, but I hesitate to label her because it's always tricky to post humorously label someone's sexuality.)

[shethehoodedcrow]

Poppy, preach to me your tells of battle.

What might you have seen.

You, a sombre thing of hope.

A symbol made from blood.

I allow you to open my eyes, and sing your tune.

Victory emerges to a greater few.

The view from way up here. Souls without a trace , left from existence with you in there place.

Days may be vary and within the dark. You, that blooms a dot of red that stays in our hearts.

Poppy, preach to me your tells of battle.

Let us not forget those with said struggle.

-She, the hooded Crow 🐦‍⬛

[theworldofwars]

A Hotchkiss 1914 machine gun position of the 9th Machine Gun Battalion, American 3rd Division in a railway work shop at Chateau-Thierry, 7 June 1918.

[to-end-all-wars]

Oh to be someone's Sailor-Boy.

[faithyposting]

A Private by Edward Thomas

This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doors

Many a frozen night, and merrily

Answered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores:

‘At Mrs Greenland’s Hawthorn Bush’, said he, 

‘I slept.’ None knew which bush. Above the town,

Beyond ‘The Drover’, a hundred spot the down

In Wiltshire. And where now at last he sleeps 

More sound in France - that, too, he secret keeps. 

[mr-oscarwilde]

Happy birthday Wilfred Owen! (b. 18th March 1893) ↳  Know that since mid-September, when you still regarded me as a tiresome little knocker on your door, I held you as Keats + Christ + Elijah + my Colonel + my father-confessor + Amenophis IV in profile. What's that mathematically? In effect it is this: that I love you, dispassionately, so much, so very much, dear Fellow, that the blasting little smile you wear on reading this can't hurt me in the least. If you consider what the above Names have severally done for me, you will know what you are doing. And you have fixed my Life – however short. You did not light me: I was always a mad comet; but you have fixed me. I spun round you a satellite for a month, but I shall swing out soon, a dark star in the orbit where you will blaze.

[apoemadaykeepsthehoesaway]

Storm

-Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

His face was charged with beauty as a cloud

With glimmering lightning. When it shadowed me,

I shook, and was uneasy as a tree

That draws the brilliant danger, tremulous, bowed.

-

So must I tempt that face to loose it’s lightning.

Great gods, whose beauty is death, will laugh above,

Who made his beauty lovelier than love.

I shall be bright with their unearthly brightening.

-

And happier were it if my sap consume;

Glorious will shine the opening of my heart;

The land shall freshen that was under gloom;

What matter if all men cry out and start,

And women hide their faces in their shawl,

At those hilarious thunders of my fall?

[byronicist]

“I am but the brain that dreamed and died.”

Siegfried Sassoon, The Humbled Heart