We are now starting the Nursing The Troops section of poems. You need to post at least one comment on any of the poems, paying attention to the AOs, of course. You also need to respond to a comment made by someone else. I will start us off:
The women are portrayed as courageous in these poems whether they are dealing with the physical pain the men endure or the psychological trauma they are likely to suffer. The men are presented as distracted by gramophone tunes or memories of fighting or idyllic images of life back home but it is horror that leads us through this section and it is their loss that lingers.
C Macrae
Sunday 12 January 2014
In a V A D pantry - Alberta Vickridge
Pots in piles of blue and white,
Old in service, cracked and chipped--
While the bare-armed girls tonight
Rinse and dry, with trivial-lipped
Mirth, and jests, and giggling chatter,
In this maze of curls and clatter
Is there no one sees in you
More than common white and blue?
When the potter trimmed your clay's
Sodden mass to his desire--
Washed you in the viscid glaze
That is clarified by fire--
When he sold your sort in lots,
Reckoning such as common pots--
Did he not at times foresee
Sorrow in your destiny?
Lips of fever, parched for drink
From this vessel seek relief
Ah, so often, that I think
Many a sad Last Supper's grief
Haunts it still-- that they who died,
In man's quarrel crucified,
Shed a nimbus strange and pale
Round about this humble Grail.
Alberta Vickridge
Old in service, cracked and chipped--
While the bare-armed girls tonight
Rinse and dry, with trivial-lipped
Mirth, and jests, and giggling chatter,
In this maze of curls and clatter
Is there no one sees in you
More than common white and blue?
When the potter trimmed your clay's
Sodden mass to his desire--
Washed you in the viscid glaze
That is clarified by fire--
When he sold your sort in lots,
Reckoning such as common pots--
Did he not at times foresee
Sorrow in your destiny?
Lips of fever, parched for drink
From this vessel seek relief
Ah, so often, that I think
Many a sad Last Supper's grief
Haunts it still-- that they who died,
In man's quarrel crucified,
Shed a nimbus strange and pale
Round about this humble Grail.
Alberta Vickridge
Kensington Gardens - Viviane Verne
Dappling shadows on the summer grass,
Vernal rivalry among the trees;
Lovers smiling coyly as they pass,
Sparrow’s laughing in the summer breeze.
Children playing by the placid lake,
Coaxing ducks, with greedy eyes;
Sunlight gilding rippllets that break
Where they struggle for a prize.
Jealous dogs that ‘do delight’
In frantic grappling for a stick,
Racing back with ‘bark and bite’.
To yield a trophy quite historic.
Lonely ladies dreaming in bath=chairs,
Old men taking sun baths on their seats,
Nurses softly talking in prim pairs,
Telling of their soldier lovers’ feats.
Medall’d patrols keeping austere guard,
Over radiant rose and ever-greens,
Gold-flecked finery and velvet sward,
And the quiet garden of dead queens.
Fleecy cloud in limpid blue,
Smiling down with tender mein;
Life seems simple, honest, true,
In this simple open scene.
Who would think that vault benign
God’s last area free from vice,
Initiates the aerial mine,
With babes below as sacrifice.
Sitting here on summer morn,
With the birds and babes at play.
Who could dream that sky was torn
Yesternight – with hellish spray/
It is strange that Nature’s lurement
Waits – unclaimed – for our retrievement,
While men war in false endurement
Deeming this life’s great achievement.
Viviane Verne
Vernal rivalry among the trees;
Lovers smiling coyly as they pass,
Sparrow’s laughing in the summer breeze.
Children playing by the placid lake,
Coaxing ducks, with greedy eyes;
Sunlight gilding rippllets that break
Where they struggle for a prize.
Jealous dogs that ‘do delight’
In frantic grappling for a stick,
Racing back with ‘bark and bite’.
To yield a trophy quite historic.
Lonely ladies dreaming in bath=chairs,
Old men taking sun baths on their seats,
Nurses softly talking in prim pairs,
Telling of their soldier lovers’ feats.
Medall’d patrols keeping austere guard,
Over radiant rose and ever-greens,
Gold-flecked finery and velvet sward,
And the quiet garden of dead queens.
Fleecy cloud in limpid blue,
Smiling down with tender mein;
Life seems simple, honest, true,
In this simple open scene.
Who would think that vault benign
God’s last area free from vice,
Initiates the aerial mine,
With babes below as sacrifice.
Sitting here on summer morn,
With the birds and babes at play.
Who could dream that sky was torn
Yesternight – with hellish spray/
It is strange that Nature’s lurement
Waits – unclaimed – for our retrievement,
While men war in false endurement
Deeming this life’s great achievement.
Viviane Verne
Joining The Colours - Katharine Tynan
THERE they go marching all in step so gay!
Smooth-cheeked and golden, food for shells and guns.
Blithely they go as to a wedding day,
The mothers' sons.
The drab street stares to see them row on row
On the high tram-tops, singing like the lark.
Too careless-gay for courage, singing they go
Into the dark.
With tin whistles, mouth-organs, any noise,
They pipe the way to glory and the grave;
Foolish and young, the gay and golden boys
Love cannot save.
High heart! High courage! The poor girls they kissed
Run with them : they shall kiss no more, alas!
Out of the mist they stepped-into the mist
Singing they pass.
Katharine Tynan
Smooth-cheeked and golden, food for shells and guns.
Blithely they go as to a wedding day,
The mothers' sons.
The drab street stares to see them row on row
On the high tram-tops, singing like the lark.
Too careless-gay for courage, singing they go
Into the dark.
With tin whistles, mouth-organs, any noise,
They pipe the way to glory and the grave;
Foolish and young, the gay and golden boys
Love cannot save.
High heart! High courage! The poor girls they kissed
Run with them : they shall kiss no more, alas!
Out of the mist they stepped-into the mist
Singing they pass.
Katharine Tynan
A Girl's Song - Katharine Tynan
The Meuse and Marne have little waves;
The slender poplars o'er them lean.
One day they will forget the graves
That give the grass its living green.
Some brown French girl the rose will wear
That springs above his comely head;
Will twine it in her russet hair,
Nor wonder why it is so red.
His blood is in the rose's veins,
His hair is in the yellow corn.
My grief is in the weeping rains
And in the keening wind forlorn.
Flow softly, softly, Marne and Meuse;
Tread lightly all ye browsing sheep;
Fall tenderly, O silver dews,
For here my dear Love lies asleep.
The earth is on his sealèd eyes,
The beauty marred that was my pride;
Would I were lying where he lies,
And sleeping sweetly by his side!
The Spring will come by Meuse and Marne,
The birds be blithesome in the tree.
I heap the stones to make his cairn
Where many sleep as sound as he
Katharine Tynan
The slender poplars o'er them lean.
One day they will forget the graves
That give the grass its living green.
Some brown French girl the rose will wear
That springs above his comely head;
Will twine it in her russet hair,
Nor wonder why it is so red.
His blood is in the rose's veins,
His hair is in the yellow corn.
My grief is in the weeping rains
And in the keening wind forlorn.
Flow softly, softly, Marne and Meuse;
Tread lightly all ye browsing sheep;
Fall tenderly, O silver dews,
For here my dear Love lies asleep.
The earth is on his sealèd eyes,
The beauty marred that was my pride;
Would I were lying where he lies,
And sleeping sweetly by his side!
The Spring will come by Meuse and Marne,
The birds be blithesome in the tree.
I heap the stones to make his cairn
Where many sleep as sound as he
Katharine Tynan
The Broken Soldier - Katharine Tynan
The broken soldier sings and whistles day to dark;
He's but the remnant of a man, maimed and half-blind,
But the soul they could not harm goes singing like the lark,
Like the incarnate Joy that will not be confined.
The Lady at the Hall has given him a light task,
He works in the gardens as busy as a bee;
One hand is but a stump and his face a pitted mask;
The gay soul goes singing like a bird set free.
Whistling and singing like a linnet on wings;
The others stop to listen, leaning on the spade,
Whole men and comely, they fret at little things.
The soul of him's singing like a thrush in a glade.
Hither and thither, hopping, like Robin on the grass,
The soul in the broken man is beautiful and brave;
And while he weeds the pansies and the bright hours pass
The bird caught in the cage whistles its joyous stave.
Katharine Tynan
He's but the remnant of a man, maimed and half-blind,
But the soul they could not harm goes singing like the lark,
Like the incarnate Joy that will not be confined.
The Lady at the Hall has given him a light task,
He works in the gardens as busy as a bee;
One hand is but a stump and his face a pitted mask;
The gay soul goes singing like a bird set free.
Whistling and singing like a linnet on wings;
The others stop to listen, leaning on the spade,
Whole men and comely, they fret at little things.
The soul of him's singing like a thrush in a glade.
Hither and thither, hopping, like Robin on the grass,
The soul in the broken man is beautiful and brave;
And while he weeds the pansies and the bright hours pass
The bird caught in the cage whistles its joyous stave.
Katharine Tynan
The Hospital Visitor - Alys Fane Trotter
When yesterday I went to see friends –
(Watching their patient faces in a row
I want to give each boy a D.S.O.)
When yesterday I went to see my friends
With cigarettes and foolish odds and ends,
(Knowing they understand how well I know
That nothing I can do will make amends,
But that I must not grieve, or tell them so),
A pale-faced Iniskilling, just eighteen,
Who’d fought two years, with eyes a little dim
Smiled up and showed me, there behind the screen
On the humped bandage that replaced a limb,
How someone left him, where the leg had been
A tiny green glass pig to comfort him.
Here are men who’ve learned to laugh at pain.
And if their lips have quivered when they spoke,
They’ve said brave words, or tried to make a joke,
Said it’s not worse than trenches in the rain,
Or pools of water on a chalky plain,
Or bitter cold from which you stiffly woke,
Or deep wet mud that left you hardly sane,
Or the tense wait for ‘Fritz’s master stroke’.
You seldom hear then talk of their ‘bad luck’.
And suffering has not spoiled their ready wit,
And oh! You’d hardly doubt their fighting pluck
When each new generation shows their grit,
Who never brag of blows for England struck,
But only yearn to ‘ get about a bit’.
Alys Fane Trotter
(Watching their patient faces in a row
I want to give each boy a D.S.O.)
When yesterday I went to see my friends
With cigarettes and foolish odds and ends,
(Knowing they understand how well I know
That nothing I can do will make amends,
But that I must not grieve, or tell them so),
A pale-faced Iniskilling, just eighteen,
Who’d fought two years, with eyes a little dim
Smiled up and showed me, there behind the screen
On the humped bandage that replaced a limb,
How someone left him, where the leg had been
A tiny green glass pig to comfort him.
Here are men who’ve learned to laugh at pain.
And if their lips have quivered when they spoke,
They’ve said brave words, or tried to make a joke,
Said it’s not worse than trenches in the rain,
Or pools of water on a chalky plain,
Or bitter cold from which you stiffly woke,
Or deep wet mud that left you hardly sane,
Or the tense wait for ‘Fritz’s master stroke’.
You seldom hear then talk of their ‘bad luck’.
And suffering has not spoiled their ready wit,
And oh! You’d hardly doubt their fighting pluck
When each new generation shows their grit,
Who never brag of blows for England struck,
But only yearn to ‘ get about a bit’.
Alys Fane Trotter
Poem Untitled - Iris Tree
And afterwards, when honour has made good,
And all you think you fight for shall take place,
A late rejoicing to a crippled race;
The bulldog’s teeth relax and snap for food,
The eagles fly to their forsaken brood,
Within the ravaged nest. When no disgrace
Shall spread a blush across the haggard face
Of anxious Pride, already flushed with blood.
In victory will you have conquered Hate,
And stuck old Folly with a bayonet
And battered down the hideous prison gate?
Or will the fatted gods be gloried yet,
Glutted with gold and dust and empty state.
The incense of our anguish and our sweat?
Iris Tree
Poem Untitled - Iris Tree
Of all who died in silence far away
Where sympathy was busy with other things,
Busy with words, inventing how to slay,
Troubled with rights and wrongs and governments and kings.
The little dead who knew so large a love,
Whose lives were sweet unto themselves a shepherding
Of hopes, ambitions, wonders in a drove
Over the hills of time, that now are graves for burying.
Of all the tenderness that flowed to them,
A milky way streaming from out their mother’s breast,
Stars were they to her night, ans she the stem
From which they flowered – now barren and left unblessed.
Of all the sparkling kisses that they gave
Spangling a secret radiance on adoring hands,
Now stifled in the darkness of a grave
With kiss of loneliness and death’s embracing bands.
No more!-And we, the mourners, dare not wear
The black that folds our hearts in secrecy if pain,
But must don purple and bright standards bear,
Vermillion of our honour, a bloody train.
We dare not weep who must be brave in battle-
‘Another death – another day – another inch of land –
The dead are cheering and the ghost drums rattle’....
The deaf are dumb and the dumb cannot understand....
Of all who died in darkness far away
Nothing is left of them but LOVE, who triumphs now,
His arms held crosswise to the budding day,
The passion-red roses clustering his brow.
Iris Tree
Where sympathy was busy with other things,
Busy with words, inventing how to slay,
Troubled with rights and wrongs and governments and kings.
The little dead who knew so large a love,
Whose lives were sweet unto themselves a shepherding
Of hopes, ambitions, wonders in a drove
Over the hills of time, that now are graves for burying.
Of all the tenderness that flowed to them,
A milky way streaming from out their mother’s breast,
Stars were they to her night, ans she the stem
From which they flowered – now barren and left unblessed.
Of all the sparkling kisses that they gave
Spangling a secret radiance on adoring hands,
Now stifled in the darkness of a grave
With kiss of loneliness and death’s embracing bands.
No more!-And we, the mourners, dare not wear
The black that folds our hearts in secrecy if pain,
But must don purple and bright standards bear,
Vermillion of our honour, a bloody train.
We dare not weep who must be brave in battle-
‘Another death – another day – another inch of land –
The dead are cheering and the ghost drums rattle’....
The deaf are dumb and the dumb cannot understand....
Of all who died in darkness far away
Nothing is left of them but LOVE, who triumphs now,
His arms held crosswise to the budding day,
The passion-red roses clustering his brow.
Iris Tree
A Letter from Ealing Broadway Station - Aelfrida Catharine Wetenhall Tillyard
‘Night. Fog. Tall through the murky gloom
The coloured lights of signals loom,
And underneath my boot I feel
The long recumbent lines of steel.
As up and down the beat I tramp
My face and hair are wet with damp;
My hands are cold – but that’s a trifle –
And I must mind the sentry’s rifle.
‘Twould be a foolish way to die,
Mistaken for a German spy!
Hardest of all is jsut to keep
Open my eyelids drugged with sleep.
Stand back! With loud metallic crash
And lighted windows all a-flash
The train to Bristol past me booms.
I wonder who has got my rooms!
I like to think that Frank is there,
An d Willie in the basket-chair,
While Ernest, with his guileless looks,
Is making havoc in my books.
The smoke-rings rise, and we discuss
Friendship, and What Life Means To Us,
What is it that the kitchens lack,
And where we’ll take our tramp next vac.
Those girls at Newham whom I taught
I’ll spare them each a friendly thought....
An hour to dawn! I’d better keep
Moving, or I shall fall asleep.
I’ve had before my eyes these days
The fires of Antwerp all ablaze.
(The startled women scream and weep;
Only the dead have time to sleep.)
I’d like to feel that I was helping
To send the German curs a-yelping.
Well, if i serve the Belgian nation
By guarding Ealing Broadway station,
I’ll guard it gladly, never fear
Sister, good-night; the dawn is here’
Aelfrida Catharine Wetenhall Tillyard
The coloured lights of signals loom,
And underneath my boot I feel
The long recumbent lines of steel.
As up and down the beat I tramp
My face and hair are wet with damp;
My hands are cold – but that’s a trifle –
And I must mind the sentry’s rifle.
‘Twould be a foolish way to die,
Mistaken for a German spy!
Hardest of all is jsut to keep
Open my eyelids drugged with sleep.
Stand back! With loud metallic crash
And lighted windows all a-flash
The train to Bristol past me booms.
I wonder who has got my rooms!
I like to think that Frank is there,
An d Willie in the basket-chair,
While Ernest, with his guileless looks,
Is making havoc in my books.
The smoke-rings rise, and we discuss
Friendship, and What Life Means To Us,
What is it that the kitchens lack,
And where we’ll take our tramp next vac.
Those girls at Newham whom I taught
I’ll spare them each a friendly thought....
An hour to dawn! I’d better keep
Moving, or I shall fall asleep.
I’ve had before my eyes these days
The fires of Antwerp all ablaze.
(The startled women scream and weep;
Only the dead have time to sleep.)
I’d like to feel that I was helping
To send the German curs a-yelping.
Well, if i serve the Belgian nation
By guarding Ealing Broadway station,
I’ll guard it gladly, never fear
Sister, good-night; the dawn is here’
Aelfrida Catharine Wetenhall Tillyard
Invitation Au Festin - Aelfrida Catharine Wetenhall Tillyard
Oh come and live with me, my love,
And share my war-time dinner,
Who eats the least at this our feast,
Shall make John Bull the winner.
Here is a plate of cabbage soup,
With caterpillars in,
How good they taste! (Avoid all waste,
If you the war would win.)
Now, will you have a minnow, love,
Or half an inch of eel?
A stickleback, a slice of jack,
Shall grace our festive meal.
We’ve no unpatriotic joints,
No sugar and no bread,
East nothing sweet, no rolls, no meat,
The Food controller said.
But would you like some sparrow pie,
To counteract the eel?
A slice of swede is what you need,
And please don’t leave the peel.
But there’s dessert for you, my love,
Some glucose stewed with sloes,
And now good-night – your dreams be bright!
(Perhaps they will – who knows?)
Aelfrida Catharine Wetenhall Tillyard
And share my war-time dinner,
Who eats the least at this our feast,
Shall make John Bull the winner.
Here is a plate of cabbage soup,
With caterpillars in,
How good they taste! (Avoid all waste,
If you the war would win.)
Now, will you have a minnow, love,
Or half an inch of eel?
A stickleback, a slice of jack,
Shall grace our festive meal.
We’ve no unpatriotic joints,
No sugar and no bread,
East nothing sweet, no rolls, no meat,
The Food controller said.
But would you like some sparrow pie,
To counteract the eel?
A slice of swede is what you need,
And please don’t leave the peel.
But there’s dessert for you, my love,
Some glucose stewed with sloes,
And now good-night – your dreams be bright!
(Perhaps they will – who knows?)
Aelfrida Catharine Wetenhall Tillyard
In Time of War - Lesbia Thanet
In time of war
I dreamed (God pity babes at play)
How I should love past all romance,
And how to him beloved should say,
As heroes’ women say, perchance,
When the deep drums awake –
‘Go forth: do gloriously for my dear sake.’
But now I render, blind with fear
No lover made of dreams, but You
O You – so commonplace, so dear,
So knit with all I am and do!
Now, braver thought I lack:
Only God bring you back – God bring you back!
Lesbia Thanet
I dreamed (God pity babes at play)
How I should love past all romance,
And how to him beloved should say,
As heroes’ women say, perchance,
When the deep drums awake –
‘Go forth: do gloriously for my dear sake.’
But now I render, blind with fear
No lover made of dreams, but You
O You – so commonplace, so dear,
So knit with all I am and do!
Now, braver thought I lack:
Only God bring you back – God bring you back!
Lesbia Thanet
Spring in War-Time - Sarah Teasdale
I feel the spring far off, far off,
The faint, far scent of bud and leaf --
Oh, how can spring take heart to come
To a world in grief,
Deep grief?
The sun turns north, the days grow long,
Later the evening star grows bright --
How can the daylight linger on
For men to fight,
Still fight?
The grass is waking in the ground,
Soon it will rise and blow in waves --
How can it have the heart to sway
Over the graves,
New graves?
Under the boughs where lovers walked
The apple-blooms will shed their breath --
But what of all the lovers now
Parted by Death,
Grey Death?
Sarah Teasdale
The faint, far scent of bud and leaf --
Oh, how can spring take heart to come
To a world in grief,
Deep grief?
The sun turns north, the days grow long,
Later the evening star grows bright --
How can the daylight linger on
For men to fight,
Still fight?
The grass is waking in the ground,
Soon it will rise and blow in waves --
How can it have the heart to sway
Over the graves,
New graves?
Under the boughs where lovers walked
The apple-blooms will shed their breath --
But what of all the lovers now
Parted by Death,
Grey Death?
Sarah Teasdale
One Night - Millicent Sutherland
I walked into a moon of gold last night
Across grey sands she seemed to shine so bright.
Wide, wide the sands until I met the sea,
Cradle of moons, yet searchlights followed me.
I asked the moon if creeping round the Zones
She had seen good, or only poor things' bones.
"Pale faces I have seen, unconscious men
Bereft of struggling horror now and then.
"And sinking ships I see, and floating mines,
And cries I hear, 'O God,' and choking whines.
"But later when the stars shine on the wave
And give more light, I know the dead die brave.
"Passing so quickly from the things that count,
Count to all mortal thoughts, to find the Fount,
"Where angels pour elixir into bowls,
Drink, not for broken hearts, but thirsty souls."
"And what on shore?" I asked, "the great Divide
Where rivers run, and trenches side by side?"
"There," the moon said, "the snow was on the ground
And the frost pinched me as I beamed around.
"Red pools of gore, and ghastly shadows lay
In deep dug corners, so I sank away.
"Let misty cloudlets sweep across my face
To hide the earth, and give me heart of grace.
"Sudden the air seemed filled with eager breath
Of great Adventurers, released from death,
"And shaking blood from out their eyes and hair
Shouting for further knowledge here and there.
"I lighted these across the treacherous Path
To reach the garden of Life's aftermath.
"And as they sped in troops the great guns boomed,
With flashes lightning swift, and dark hordes loomed,
"And phantom shapes of patient warrior bands --
Then more snow fell and shrouded all the lands."
Now pondering from the moon I turned again,
Over the sands, back to our House of Pain.
Millicent Sutherland
Across grey sands she seemed to shine so bright.
Wide, wide the sands until I met the sea,
Cradle of moons, yet searchlights followed me.
I asked the moon if creeping round the Zones
She had seen good, or only poor things' bones.
"Pale faces I have seen, unconscious men
Bereft of struggling horror now and then.
"And sinking ships I see, and floating mines,
And cries I hear, 'O God,' and choking whines.
"But later when the stars shine on the wave
And give more light, I know the dead die brave.
"Passing so quickly from the things that count,
Count to all mortal thoughts, to find the Fount,
"Where angels pour elixir into bowls,
Drink, not for broken hearts, but thirsty souls."
"And what on shore?" I asked, "the great Divide
Where rivers run, and trenches side by side?"
"There," the moon said, "the snow was on the ground
And the frost pinched me as I beamed around.
"Red pools of gore, and ghastly shadows lay
In deep dug corners, so I sank away.
"Let misty cloudlets sweep across my face
To hide the earth, and give me heart of grace.
"Sudden the air seemed filled with eager breath
Of great Adventurers, released from death,
"And shaking blood from out their eyes and hair
Shouting for further knowledge here and there.
"I lighted these across the treacherous Path
To reach the garden of Life's aftermath.
"And as they sped in troops the great guns boomed,
With flashes lightning swift, and dark hordes loomed,
"And phantom shapes of patient warrior bands --
Then more snow fell and shrouded all the lands."
Now pondering from the moon I turned again,
Over the sands, back to our House of Pain.
Millicent Sutherland
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