Drummer Hodge by Thomas Hardy (1840 1928)

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest Uncoffined just as found: His landmark is a kopje-crest That breaks the veldt around; And foreign constellations west Each night above his mound. Young Hodge the Drummer never knew Fresh from his Wessex home The meaning of the broad Karoo, The Bush, the dusty loam, And why uprose to nightly view Strange stars amid the gloam. Yet portion of that unknown plain Will Hodge forever be; His homely Northern breast and brain Grow to some Southern tree, And strange-eyed constellations reign His stars eternally. c. 1899

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kopje hill karoo - desert gloam - sky

The Soldier

by Rupert Brooke (1887 1915)

If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is forever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam; A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
1914

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PEACE

by Rupert Brooke

Now, God be thanked Who has matched us1 with His hour, And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping, With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power, To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary, Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move, And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary, And all the little emptiness of love!2 Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release3 there, Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending, Naught broken save4 this body, lost but breath; Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there But only agony, and that has ending; And the worst friend and enemy is but Death.

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1 matched us - made us suitable to take part in these thrilling times 2 emptiness of love - Brooke was disillusioned with love. He had a stormy relationship with Katherine Cox which led to a nervous breakdown. Other relationships with young women were never lastingly satisfactory. 3 release - relief, a sense of freedom 4 save - except

Base Details

by Siegfried Sassoon (18861967)

If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath, Id live with scarlet Majors at the Base, And speed glum heroes up the line to death. Youd see me with my puffy petulant face, Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel, Reading the Roll of Honour. Poor young chap Id sayI used to know his father well; Yes, weve lost heavily in this last scrap. And when the war is done and youth stone dead, Id toddle safely home and diein bed.

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Glory of Women

by Siegfried Sassoon

You love us when we're heroes, home on leave, Or wounded in a mentionable place. You worship decorations; you believe That chivalry redeems the war's disgrace. You make us shells. You listen with delight, 5 By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled. You crown our distant ardours while we fight, And mourn our laurelled memories when we're killed. You can't believe that British troops 'retire' When hell's last horror breaks them, and they run, 10 Trampling the terrible corpses - blind with blood. O German mother dreaming by the fire, While you are knitting socks to send your son His face is trodden deeper in the mud.
1917

ANTHEM1 FOR DOOMED YOUTH by Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

What passing-bells2 for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out3 their hasty orisons.4 No mockeries5 now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill, demented6 choirs of wailing shells; And bugles7 calling for them from sad shires.8 What candles9 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 pallor10 of girls' brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk11 a drawing-down of blinds.12
September - October, 1917

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1 Anthem - perhaps best known in the expression "The National Anthem;" also, an important religious song (often expressing joy); here, perhaps, a solemn song of celebration 2 passing-bells - a bell tolled after someone's death to announce the death to the world 3 patter out - rapidly speak 4 orisons - prayers, here funeral prayers 5 mockeries - ceremonies which are insults. Here Owen seems to be suggesting that the Christian religion, with its loving God, can have nothing to do with the deaths of so many thousands of men 6 demented - raving mad 7 bugles - a bugle is played at military funerals 8 shires - English counties and countryside from which so many of the soldiers came 9 candles - church candles, or the candles lit in the room where a body lies in a coffin 10 pallor - paleness 11 dusk has a symbolic significance here - discuss 12 drawing-down of blinds - normally a preparation for night, but also, here, the tradition of drawing the blinds in a room where a dead person lies, as a sign to the world and as a mark of respect. The coming of night is like the drawing down of blinds.

Dulce et Decorum est by Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)

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 floundering 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, 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.

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Notes for poem above (Dulce et Decorum Est)

'gas-shells': Explosive shells releasing poison gas were used for the fist time during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. Chlorine, a greenish-yellow gas, can be made from, among other things, sea-water. It's strong-smelling and very poisonous, and if inhaled melts and burns the nose, throat and lungs. 'clumsy helmets...misty panes': the first prototype gas-masks, bulky and unwieldy, were fitted with clear panels to see through, which easily steamed up. 'fire or lime': both were ways of disposing of dead bodies when burial was impossible. (Caustic lime burns flesh away.) 'guttering': when a candle gutters, it melts, and when a flame gutters in the draught it seems about to go out; here perhaps Owen means to suggest the dying man's face 'melting' in the cloud of gas, and passing in and out of his vision through the small gas-mask pane. A 'guttering' light can also be a symbol of life ebbing away. 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' ('dulce' is usually pronounced 'dool-kay'): famous Latin words by the Roman poet Horace, around 19BC: 'It is a sweet and honourable thing to die for one's country'.

I Have a Rendezvous With Death

by Alan Seeger (1888-1916)

I HAVE a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair. It may be he shall take my hand And lead me into his dark land And close my eyes and quench my breath It may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with Death On some scarred slope of battered hill, When Spring comes round again this year And the first meadow-flowers appear. God knows t were better to be deep Pillowed in silk and scented down, Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, Where hushed awakenings are dear But Ive a rendezvous with Death At midnight in some flaming town, When Spring trips north again this year, And I to my pledged word am true, I shall not fail that rendezvous.
c 1916

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

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 county 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 men, 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.

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