Voices of Silence (30 page)
Authors: Vivien Noakes
There are tear-dimmed eyes in the town today,
There are lips to be no more kissed,
There are bosoms that swell with an aching heart
When they think of a dear one missed.
But time will assuage their heartfelt grief;
Of their sons they will proudly tell
How in gallant charge in this world-wide war,
As ‘Pals’ they fought and fell!
T. Clayton
Broken Bodies
Not for the broken bodies,
When the War is over and done,
For the miserable eyes that never
Again shall see the sun;
Not for the broken bodies
Crawling over the land,
The patchwork limbs, the shoddies,
Not for the broken bodies,
Dear Lord, we crave your hand.
Not for the broken bodies,
We pray your dearest aid,
When the ghost of War for ever
Is levelled at last and laid;
Not for the broken bodies
That wrought their sorrowful parts
Our chiefest need of God is,
Not for the broken bodies,
Dear Lord – the broken hearts!
Louis Golding
The Widow
My heart is numb with sorrow;
The long days dawn and wane;
To me no sweet to-morrow
Will bring my man again.
Yet must my grief be hidden –
Life makes insistent claim,
And women, anguish-ridden,
Their rebel hearts must tame.
For while, my vigil keeping,
I face the eternal law,
Here on my breast lies sleeping
The son he never saw.
C.M. Mitchell
A Little War Tragedy
I must not bewail,
Falter or grow pale,
Say I’m ill or sit wrapped in a shawl:
He was not my brother,
Nor acknowledged lover –
No one knew I cared for him at all.
Just by chance they said,
‘Have you heard he’s dead?’
As they handed me a cup of tea:
One among so many,
Guess they had not any –
He was just the whole wide world to me.
Life must still go on,
Work is to be done –
These things happen every day I know:
I was nothing to him
Have no right to rue him,
Save the right of having loved him so.
To A.M.
(Killed in Flanders)
Now you are dead, I dare not read
That letter that you sent to me
Before you went: my heart would bleed
If I that writing now should see.
For I should dream how, long ago,
We walked those careless Oxford ways,
When Cherwell’s banks were all aglow
With hawthorn and with reddening mays.
And see, as once I used to see,
St Mary’s spire against the sky:
And hear you laugh and call to me
As I came slowly up the High.
H. Rex Freston
Lost in France
He had the ploughman’s strength
In the grasp of his hand.
He could see a crow
Three mile away.
And the trout beneath the stone.
He could hear the green oats growing,
And the sou’-west making rain;
And the wheel upon the hill
When it left the level road.
He could make a gate, and dig a pit,
And plow as straight as stone can fall.
And he is dead.
Ernest Rhys
Telling the Bees
(An old Gloucestershire superstition)
They dug no grave for our soldier lad, who fought and who died out there:
Bugle and drum for him were dumb, and the padre said no prayer;
The passing bell gave never a peal to warn that a soul was fled,
And we laid him not in the quiet spot where cluster his kin that are dead.
But I hear a foot on the pathway, above the low hum of the hive,
That at edge of dark, with the song of the lark, tells that the world is alive:
The master starts on his errand, his tread is heavy and slow,
Yet he cannot choose but tell the news – the bees have a right to know.
Bound by the ties of a happier day, they are one with us now in our worst;
On the very morn that my boy was born they were told the tidings the first:
With what pride they will hear of the end he made, and the ordeal that he trod –
Of the scream of shell, and the venom of hell, and the flame of the sword of God.
Wise little heralds, tell of my boy; in your golden tabard coats
Tell the bank where he slept, and the stream he leapt, where the spangled lily floats:
The tree he climbed shall lift her head, and the torrent he swam shall thrill,
And the tempest that bore his shouts before shall cry his message still.
G.E. Rees
To a Dog
Past happiness dissolves. It fades away,
Ghost-like, in that dim attic of the mind
To which the dreams of childhood are consigned.
Here, withered garlands hang in slow decay,
And trophies glimmer in the dying ray
Of stars that once with heavenly glory shined.
But you, old friend, are you still left behind
To tell the nearness of life’s yesterday?
Ah, boon companion of my vanished boy,
For you he lives; in every sylvan walk
He waits; and you expect him everywhere.
How would you stir, what cries, what bounds of joy,
If but his voice were heard in casual talk,
If but his footstep sounded on the stair!
John Jay Chapman
The Dead Hero
I know where I can find him. I shall look
In every whispering glade and laughing brook,
In every passing wind I’ll hear his sigh
And feel his tears fall on me from the sky
In drops the foolish living call the rain,
And in the sun I’ll see his smile again,
And on the roses blowing in the South
I’ll feel once more the soft touch of his mouth.
Elsie P. Cranmer
The Wounded in England
Military hospitals, VADs, convalescence
The more seriously wounded from the Somme fighting were brought back to England. They crossed by boat, some coming into Southampton, others to Dover from where they were taken by train through the Kent countryside to London. At Charing Cross station crowds gathered in the forecourt to see them arrive, and the wounded were then driven by ambulance to their destinations.
For many the war was over; their wounds were too serious for them to go back. Their initial response was often one of relief for, however serious their injuries, they were at least alive.
In the hospitals they were looked after by professional nurses, and by VADs, volunteer nurses who made up a substantial part of the nursing force. Some went to Roehampton Hospital, the centre for limbless servicemen.
For those whose injuries were less severe, their time in England came to an end. When they had been passed fit, they returned once more to France.
Ex Umbra
Morning.
A khaki line – a drizzling rain,
The thunder of big guns pealing;
The shriek of shell – a cry of pain,
And dark o’er my senses stealing.
Evening.
A salt sea breeze – a city’s roar,
The sense of a journey ending;
A shaded lamp in a corridor,
And a sweet face o’er me bending.
J. Bourke
Evening – Kent
Sheep, like woolly clouds dropt from the sky,
Drift through the quiet meads.
From over the seas, a little cry,
— Europe bleeds!
Clouds, like woolly sheep, hardly stirr’d,
Drift through the quiet skies.
From over the seas, a little word,
— Europe dies!
Louis Golding
Charing Cross
The incoming tide beats up the river,
With a breeze from the main,
And people await, with hearts a-quiver,
The incoming train!
Day in, day out, through the grimy portals,
The pale patients of Pain
Pass ’mid the tears and smiles of the mortals
They gaze on again!
In War’s red tide they were tossed and broken –
Never shattered in vain!
They faced Death in Life’s eyes in unspoken
But noble disdain!
Now they are home, and hundreds await
The incoming train;
Pride in the heroes their hearts doth elate
Like a breeze from the main!
A Sister in a Military Hospital
Blue dress, blue tippet, trimmed with red,
White veil, coif-like about her head.
Starched apron, cuffs, and cool, kind hands,
Trained servants to her quick commands.
Swift feet that lag not to obey
In diligent service day by day.
A face that would have brought delight
To some pure-souled pre-Raphaelite;
Madonna of a moment, caught
Unwary in the toils of thought,
Stilled in her tireless energy,
Dark-eyed and hushed with sympathy.
Warm, eager as the south-west wind,
Straight as a larch and gaily kind
As pinewood fires on winter eves,
Wholesome and young as April leaves,
Four seasons blent in rare accord
– You have the Sister of our ward.
Winifred M. Letts
To a V.A.D. from a V.A.D.
When you start by oversleeping, and the bath is bagged three deep,
When you stagger to the window ’neath the blind to take a peep,
When you find the snow is snowing, and it’s murky overhead,
When your room-mate has a day off, and lies snugly tucked in bed,
When your cap falls in the coal-box and you lose your collar stud,
When it’s time to start, and then you find your shoes are thick in mud,
When you scramble in to breakfast, just too late to drink your tea –
Don’t grouse, my dear; remember you’re a ‘War-time V.A.D.’.
When you start to scrub the lockers and the bowl falls on the floor,
When you finish them and then you find that they were done before,
When you haven’t got a hanky and you want to blow your nose,
When the patients shriek with laughter ’cos a bed drops on your toes,
When you use the last Sapolio and can’t get any more,
When you’ve lost the key belonging to the Linen Cupboard door,
When your head is fairly splitting, and you’re feeling up a tree –
Don’t grouse, my dear; remember you’re a ‘War-time V.A.D.’.
When the Doctor comes into the ward, and each stands to his bed,
When he asks you for a probe and you hand him gauze instead,
When the Sister ‘strafes’ you soundly ’cos Brown’s kit is incomplete,
When you take a man some dinner, and upset it on the sheet,
When you make the beds and sweep the ward and rush with all your might,
When you stagger off duty and the wretched fire won’t light,
When you think of those at home and long for luxury and ease –
Don’t grouse, my dears; remember you’re the ‘War-time V.A.D.s’.
When your name’s read out for night shift and they leave you on your own,
When you’re suddenly in darkness and you hear the telephone,
When you crash into a coke-bin as you rush to take the call,
When they tell you there are Zepps, and that you mayn’t have lights at all,
When you go into the kitchen and a rat runs through the door,
When it chases you into a chair, and both fall on the floor,
When you try to eat your food, mistaking paraffin for tea –
Don’t grouse, my dear; remember you’re a ‘War-time V.A.D.’.
Leslie M. Goddard
To a V.A.D.
In days gone by, O, V.A.D., you treated us with scorn;
We waited on you hand and foot, till eventide from morn.
You never went out shopping but you had us on your strings,
To pay your bills, to stand you teas, and carry home your things.
We’ve often waited hours, but there, why harp upon that theme;
Whate’er the cynics may have said, o’er us you ruled supreme.
But times, alas, have changed since then; you’re doing now your bit.
Don’t think I’m laughing up my sleeve. It takes a lot of grit
For modern girls to work so hard and give up all their leisure,
Washing, scrubbing, making beds, as if it were a pleasure.
In these (and many other ways) you’re piling up huge scores,
Now you are at our beck and call as we were once at yours.
We never see you bargain-hunting now in Regent Street,
(The fashions cannot modify your uniform so neat.)
You have not time for books today, nor chocs, nor motor rides;
Nor all the other pastimes that a state of peace provides.
You’ve dropped most of the little ways that mother found so shocking,
Although I see you still expose two (?) inches of silk stocking.
The prophets tell us things will nevermore be as they were,