War in reflection: Poems from the trenches, photos for peace

In the last of my “War series” posts of this week (though look out for my paintings on war next week – I need to get photos of them first!) I turn to reflect on one of the most poignant records which have come out of World War 1: the poetry. It may seem banal, especially after all my talk of cliches earlier in the week, that I choose to reflect on poems which, in the most part, are already extremely well known. But their notoriety is testament to their pure brilliance, their power to move and take the reader right back into the quagmire hell of trench warfare. They may now be the staple of the English literature national curriculum  all over the UK (and as I know too well, this often causes the student who is agonising over the supposed multifaceted meaning of each line to hate the poem rather than admire it), but these poems are still ripe to be rediscovered, to be reread and savoured as a most moving testament to the suffering of so many during those times.

The reason why these poems work so well is that there are times of such horror that normal prose just won’t do. Through poetry, the soldiers are able to pour out their soul, their recollection of the horror in abstract phrases, bursts of painful memory, shattering like gunfire around them, painfully but beautifully transcribed onto the page.  In the poems I have selected below, hopefully you will be equally touched by every loaded word as I have been. I know this is not the traditional time for remembrance, but do we really need a date in the diary to recollect the sacrifice that was made for us?

In between the poems, I’ve included some of my own photos. Not of war, but photos which seem appropriate when remembering the dead. Those posted between the poetry are taken in the local cemetery in Marbella, Spain. Quite out of the way of the usual tourist track of the glitzy coastal town, it is nonetheless one of my favourite places to go on a summers day, to wander in the shadows of cypress trees amongst tombs and gravestones dappled with silent sunlight. It is a place of great tranquility but not of sadness. In the devotion shown by a single flower placed by one family member tending the grave of their dead, you appreciate the great family love which still retains a place of such central importance in the Spanish home. At the bottom of my post you’ll find a gallery of some of my favourite flower photos which I’ve taken over the years. Much war poetry talks of flowers, and of course the poppy has become a worldwide symbol of remembrance. It’s appropriate that this product of natural beauty has grown from a ground riddled with the ghosts of a tumultuous history. In this way flowers are a symbol of hope and continuing beauty.

Marbella cemetery © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown

Lament by F.S. Flint

The young men of the world
Are condemned to death.
They have been called up to die
For the crime of their fathers.

The young men of the world,
The growing, the ripening fruit,
Have been torn from their branches,
While the memory of the blossom
Is sweet in women’s hearts;
They have been cast for a cruel purpose
Into the mashing-press and furnace.

The young men of the world
Look into each other’s eyes,
And read there the same words:
Not yet! Not yet!
But soon perhaps, and perhaps certain.

The young men of the world
No longer possess the road:
The road possesses them.
They no longer inherit the earth:
The earth inherits them.
They are no longer the masters of fire:
Fire is their master;
They serve him, he destroys them.
They no longer rule the waters:
The genius of the seas
Has invented a new monster,
And they fly from its teeth.
They no longer breathe freely:
The genius of the air
Has contrived a new terror
That rends them into pieces.

The young men of the world
Are encompassed with death
He is all about them
In a circle of fore and bayonets.

Weep, weep, o women,
And old men break your hearts.

Pain by Ivor Gurney

Pain, pain continual; pain unending;
Hard even to the roughest, but to those
Hungry for beauty…Not the wisest knows,
Nor most pitiful-hearted, what the wending
Of one hour’s way meant. Grey monotony lending
Weight to the grey skies, grey mud where goes
An army of grey bedrenched scarecrows in rows
Careless at last of cruellest Fate-sending.
Seeing the pitiful eyes of men foredone,
Or horses shot, too tired merely to stir,
Dying in shell-holes both, slain by the mud.
Men broken, shrieking even to hear a gun.—
Till pain grinds down, or lethargy numbs her,
The amazed heart cries angrily out on God.

Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen