Danielle's WWI Poetry Blog

  Topic: Poems that address the dead or show the dead speaking to the living Question: Do the poets address the dead and show the dead speaking strictly to show the poet's guilt over the deaths of his fellow soldiers and the fact that the poet himself is still alive?           I want to look at poems that depict the dead as judging the living, but I also wanted to analyze poems to attempt to understand if the dead being addressed and personified in poems is used strictly to cause the living to feel guilt over the fact that they are still alive. The poems that I want to analyze are “Haunted” by Robert Graves, “Trench Poets” by Edgell Rickword, “Armistice Day, 1921” by Edward Shanks, and “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae. People tried to communicate with their dead loved ones during WWI and I would like to evaluate the purpose of giving a voice to the dead and directly speaking to them in war poetry. What I need help with:  I’m having trouble th...

Osbert Sitwell "Peace Celebration" by Osbert Sitwell Now we can say of those who died unsung, Unwept for, torn, ‘Thank God they were not blind Or mad! They’ve perished strong and young, Missing the misery we elders find In missing them.’ With such a platitude We try to cheer ourselves. And for each life Laid down for us, with duty well-imbued, With song-on-lip, in splendid soldier strife – For sailors, too, who willingly were sunk – We’ll shout ‘Hooray!’ –                                     And get a little drunk. “Peace Celebration” by Osbert Sitwell is – in my opinion – an odd poem. The title of the poem is fitting, because the poem describes the celebration of the war’s end, but what is shocking is that the poem seems to be a celebration of death more than the celebration of an end to years of suffering. Sitwell say...

  Ruth Comfort Mitchell He Went for a Soldier by Ruth Comfort Mitchell He  marched away with a blithe young score of him With the first volunteers, Clear-eyed and clean and sound to the core of him, Blushing under the cheers. They were fine, new flags that swung a-flying there, Oh, the pretty girls he glimpsed a-crying there, Pelting him with pinks and with roses Billy, the Soldier Boy! Not very clear in the kind young heart of him What the fuss was about, But the flowers and the flags seemed part of him -- The music drowned his doubt. It's a fine, brave sight they were a-coming there To the gay, bold tune they kept a-drumming there, While the boasting fifes shrilled jauntily -- Billy, the Soldier Boy! Soon he is one with the blinding smoke of it -- Volley and curse and groan: Then he has done with the knightly joke of it -- It's rending flesh and bone. There are pain-crazed animals a-shrieking there And a warm blood stench that is a-reeking there; He fights like a rat in a co...

  Depiction of Mary and Christ An Incident by H.J. Henderson He was just a boy, as I could see, For he sat in the tent there close by me. I held the lamp with its flickering light, And felt the hot tears blur my sight As the doctor took the blood-stained hands From both his brave, shell-shattered hands-- His boy hands, wounded more pitifully Than Thine O Christ, on Calvary. I was making tea in the tent where they, The wounded, came in their agony; And the boy turned when his wounds were dressed, Held up his face like a child at the breast, Turned and held his tired face up, For he could not hold the spoon or cup, And I fed him. . . . Mary, Mother of God, All women tread where thy feet have trod. And still on the battlefield of pain Christ is stretched on His Cross again; And the Son of God in agony hangs, Womanhood striving to ease His pangs. For each son of man is a son divine, Not just to the mother who calls him 'mine', As he stretches out his stricken hand, Wounded to death...

Eva Dobell Stanzas 1-3 of "Night Duty" by Eva Dobell The pain and laughter of the day are done So strangely hushed and still the long ward seems, Only the Sister’s candle softly beams. Clear from the church near by the clock strikes ’one’; And all are wrapt away in secret sleep and dreams. Here one cries sudden on a sobbing breath, Gripped in the clutch of some incarnate fear: What terror through the darkness draweth near? What memory of carnage and of death? What vanished scenes of dread to his closed eyes appear? And one laughs out with an exultant joy. An athlete he — Maybe his young limbs strain In some remembered game, and not in vain To win his side the goal — Poor crippled boy, Who in the waking world will never run again. Eva Dobell was born in 1876 and was the daughter of a wine merchant. Dobell joined the   Voluntary Aid Detachment   (V.A.D.) as a nurse. Women who volunteered as nurses with the Voluntary Aid Detachment served wounded and sick soldiers in both field ...

  E.A. Mackintosh Stanzas 3-5 of "In Memoriam, Private D. Sutherland, killed in action  in the German trench 16 May 1916, and the others who died," by E.A. Mackintosh You were only David's father, But I had fifty sons When we went up in the evening Under the arch of the guns, And we came back at twilight- O God! I heard them call To me for help and pity That could not help at all. Oh, never will I forget you, My men that trusted me, More my sons than your fathers', For they could only see The little helpless babies And the young men in their pride. They could not see you dying, And hold you when you died. Happy and young and gallant, They saw their first-born go, But not the strong limbs broken And the beautiful men brought low, The piteous writhing bodies, They screamed 'Don't leave me, sir" For they were only your fathers But I was your officer. What struck me most about this poem is the immense guilt evident throughout. The history behind the poem brou...