Voices of Silence (55 page)

Rhymes without Reason
,
BEF Times
, vol. 1, no. 3, 20 January 1917.

Professional Jealousy
,
Fifth Gloucester Gazette
, no. 15, October 1916. The poem is signed ‘Sapper’.

The Infantryman
,
Punch
, vol. 152, 31 January 1917.

Ballad of Army Pay
,
Gloucestershire Friends
.

To the P.B.I.
,
BEF Times
, vol. 1, no. 1, 1 December 1916. The poem is signed ‘Pioneer’.

Arma Virumque Cano
,
ibid
., vol. 1, no. 5, 10 April 1917. The poem is signed ‘C.I.P.’. The title translates: ‘Of arms I sing, and the man’, which are the opening words of Virgil’s
Aeneid
.

To James
,
Punch
, vol. 149, 8 September 1915. Reprinted in
The Mudhook
, vol. 1, no. 2, November 1917. ‘Asiatic Anne’ was a Turkish heavy gun in the Dardanelles.

The Sacred Documents
,
The Poets in Picardy
.

Headquarters
,
The Guns
. Originally published in
Land & Water
, vol. 66, no. 2800, 6 January 1916, under the heading ‘A Song of the Guns’. ‘Beer Emma’ are the letters BM; ‘Esses C’ is SC or Staff Captain.

A Staff Captain’s Lament
,
The Mudhook
, vol. 1, no. 2. Z Day was Zero Day – the day fixed for an important operation. It was preceded by Y Day, X Day, etc.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES (PASSCHENDAELE)

The Sound of Flanders Guns
,
The Lyceum Book of War Verse
.

The Burning Question
,
BEF Times
, 1 November 1917.

Between the Lines
,
Battle
.

Missing
,
Punch
, vol. 153, 17 October 1917.

Trampled Clay
,
Trampled Clay
. ‘Samite’ was a rich silk fabric worn in the Middle Ages.

Aftermath
,
Poems Written during the Great War
. Originally published in
Poetry Today
.

Before Battle
,
The Greater Love
.

Comrades
,
The Undying Splendour
.

The Soldier
.
A Subaltern’s Musings
. The poem is inscribed and dated ‘Drop Alley Trench, The Somme, 1st October, 1916’. Mann was killed six months later.

Worm
,
BEF Times
, vol. 1, no. 4, 5 March 1917. The poem is contained in ‘Letters from Edie’, and the poem is introduced: ‘I’ve been writing many decadent and Futurist poems while in bed, they needn’t rhyme, and are very simple and so effective . . . One was called ‘Worm’ and went something like this (you probably won’t appreciate it, not having read much Futurist poetry, but you may take it from me that it’s an excellent specimen of the kind of stuff that is sold in orange paper covered books with black scrolls on the covers).’ The poem follows, and then: ‘Believe me or believe me not, but I dashed that marvellous thing off in a few moments! Swonderful.’

From the Line
,
War Daubs
.

After the Battle
,
New Statesman
, vol. 9, no. 221, 30 June 1917. Reprinted in
The Bomber Gypsy
.

Statesmen Debonair
,
Sorrow of War
.

The New Trade
,
ibid
.

Rain
,
War Daubs
.

A Vignette
,
ibid
.

The Flanders Rain
,
The Mudhook
, vol. 1, no. 3, January 1918.

The Song of the Mud
,
The Forbidden Zone
.

Mad
,
The Nation
, vol. 17, no. 4, 24 April 1915. Reprinted in
Battle
. The punctuation is taken from
Battle
.

Carrying-Party
,
Ballads of Battle
.

The Fatal Wooden Track
,
The Dump
, vol. 3, Christmas 1917.

Seen from an Aid-Post
,
BEF Times
, vol. 2, no. 2, 8 September 1917.

Gun-Teams
,
The Guns
. Originally published in
Land & Water
, vol. 66, no. 2801, 13 January 1916, under the heading ‘A Song of the Guns’.

Transport
,
Eidola
. Hippolytus was the son of Theseus.

Dumb Heroes
,
A Book of Poems for the Blue Cross Fund
.

My Beautiful
,
Ballads of Field and Billet
.

Horse-Bathing Parade
,
More Ballads of Field and Billet
. Originally published in
Glasgow News
.

The Air Raid
,
Beaumont Bull
, no. 1, 11 February 1918.

The Shell
,
From Field & Hospital
. The poem is subscribed ‘Elverdinghe, April 1915’.

A Flemish Village
,
Spectator
, vol. 116, no. 4574, 26 February 1916.

To Belgium
,
The Bukshee Ration
.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: AMERICA JOINS THE WAR

The Newt-ral
,
The War Men-agerie
.

My American Cousins
,
Punch
, vol. 152, 23 May 1917.

The American Advance
,
Songs from the Trenches
.

Slacker, Think it Over!
,
ibid
.

The Crusader
,
ibid
. ‘Dieu le volt’ translates as ‘God wills it’, reputedly the words with which Pope Urban II called for the first Crusade in 1095.

To the Recruitin’ Sergeant
,
ibid
.

Somewhere in France (1)
,
ibid
.

Somewhere
,
ibid
.

Passed as Censored
,
ibid
.

Der Tag
,
Comrades of the Mist
. Originally published in
Arkright
, the weekly newsletter of the US ship
Arkansas
attached to the Sixth Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet.

CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE FINAL YEAR

[
How doth the little busy wife
],
War-Time Nursery Rhymes
.

Chairman Rhymes
,
Daily Chronicle
, nos 110 and 88, 27 and 1 February 1918.

Food Control
,
Gazette of the 3rd London General Hospital
, vol. 4, no. 1, October 1918. The poem is signed ‘S.E.R.’. ‘Ole Clynes’ is John Clynes (1869–1949), who was Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Food in Lloyd George’s government.

Economy ad Insaniam
,
Punch
, vol. 155, 25 September 1918.

The Soul of a Nation
,
ibid
., vol. 154, 3 April 1918. The poem is dated 28 March 1918.

Watch and Pray!
,
Daily Chronicle
, 29 March 1918. The poem is signed ‘S.L.’.

[
What of our comrades in the forward post?
],
Sonnets from a Prison Camp
. Bowman was taken prisoner during the March retreat – this is the ‘deeper woe’ at the end of the last sonnet. At the end of April and the beginning of May 1918 he wrote, in Rastatt prison camp, the two sequences of sonnets, ‘In the Field’ (I) and ‘The Nadir’ (I–IV, VII), from which these are taken.

During the Battle
,
Sorrow of War
. The poem is dated March 1918.

The Tide
,
Punch
, vol. 154, 8 May 1918. Reprinted in
The Mudhook
, vol. 1, no. 6, July 1918. Bernard Freyburg VC, DSO and three bars (1889–1963) was a hero of A.P. Herbert’s Hood Division in the Royal Naval Division. He had led the battalion’s attack at Beaucourt during the last days of the Battle of the Somme (see ‘Beaucourt Revisited’) and earned his VC for refusing to leave his men despite being severely wounded.

The German Graves
,
Punch
, vol. 154, 27 March 1918. Ablain St Nazaire is north-west of Vimy.

The Turn of the Tide
,
The Poets in Picardy
.

Victory Assured!
, postcard in the Rare Book Department of the British Library.

When I Come Home
,
From an Outpost
.

To Certain Persons
,
Ducks
.

The Call
,
Punch
, vol. 155, 21 August 1918. The poem is signed ‘C.F.S.’. BC is British Columbia.

Peace Problems
,
The Mudhook
, vol. 2, no. 10, Peace Number 1919. The poem is subtitled ‘By the “Mudhook” Poet’ and signed ‘E.E.C.’. ‘C.B.’ probably has the double meaning of ‘Confined to Barracks’ and ‘Commander of the Bath’.

From a Full Heart
,
Punch
, vol. 152, 2 May 1917.

The General
,
ibid
., vol. 152, 18 April 1917.

Herr Hohenzollern
,
ibid
., vol. 155, 18 December 1918. Hohenzollern was the dynastic name of Kaiser Wilhelm.

In Memory of Kaiser Bill (The Butcher)
, postcard, selling for one penny; l. 3 begins ‘Has booked . . .’.

Cousins German
,
Satire and Sentiment
. Originally published in part in
Parliamentary Debates
.

CHAPTER TWENTY: ARMISTICE AND THE PRICE OF WAR

The Armistice
,
The Splendid Days
.

Bacchanal
,
A Miscellany of Poetry – 1919
.

For a Girl
,
The Splendid Days
.

Tears
,
Wheels, 1916
.

Victory
,
The Pageant of War
.

To an Only Son
, copied into a scrapbook in the Royal Air Force Museum (AC1997/127/50). The scrapbook was put together by Canon Philpott, whose son, Capt. J.R. Philpott, MC, enlisted into the 7th Suffolk Regiment and later transferred to the RFC. He was shot down near Baghdad, captured and died as a prisoner of war. The poem is signed ‘E.L.N.’ and dated January 1920.

The Return
,
A Miscellany of Poetry – 1919
.

Peace – The Dead Speak
,
Ducks
.

The Survivors
,
The Survivors
. Originally published in
The Sphere
.

Who Won the War?
,
The Bukshee Ration
. Marshall Foch (1851–1925), the French military leader, was created Allied Supreme commander in March 1918, with overall command of all the Allied forces.

The Offside Leader
,
Country Life
, vol. 44, no. 1144, 7 December 1918.

To my Mate
,
The Nation
, vol. 24, no. 15, 11 January 1919, where the poem was published anonymously. It was reprinted in
Any Soldier to his Son
in 1919, with some changes. ‘Pozzy’ is jam; the DC Medal is the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

Reconciliation
,
The Pageant of War
.

The Reason
,
The Poetical Works. ‘Dummes Luder!’
translates as ‘Stupid creature!’

Peace
,
A Miscellany of Poetry – 1919
.

Return
,
A Muse at Sea
.

The Victory March
,
The Victory March
.

The Unknown Warrior
,
The Unknown Warrior
.

Unknown
,
The Poetical Works
.

The War Memorial
,
New Statesman
, vol. 14, no. 364, 3 April 1920.

Stranraer War Memorial
,
Galloway Advertiser and Wigtownshire Free Press
, 7 April 1921. There was a dispute in the town about the location of the war memorial. Councillors wanted it to be within the Town Hall enclosure, but others thought it should be at The Cross, a commanding position at a busy junction of four of the town’s busy thoroughfares.

In Flanders, Poppies Red
, postcard.

Only an Officer
,
The Poetical Works
.

The Unemployed
,
The Nation and The Athenæum
, vol. 32, no. 10, 9 December 1922.

In Memoriam
,
Galloway Advertiser and Wigtownshire Free Press
, 21 July 1921;
Burnley Express and Advertiser
, 3 July 1920;
Burnley Express and Advertiser
, Saturday 3 July 1920;
Accrington Observer and Times
, 3 July 1920 (the same poem was inserted for Pte Eldred Towler, 1/5th East Lancashire Regiment, who fell in action, 6 November 1918, in the
Accrington Observer and Times
, 6 November 1920);
Accrington Observer and Times
, 13 November 1920;
Galloway Advertiser and Wigstownshire Free Press
, 16 June 1921;
Accrington Observer and Times
, Saturday, 13 November 1920.

The Cenotaph: Armistice Day
,
Liverpool Review
, vol. 5, no. 12, December 1930.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE RETURN TO FRANCE

The Battle-fields
,
The Nation and The Athenæum
, vol. 31, no. 27, 30 September 1922. Reprinted in
Poems of Five Decades
with some changes.

The Menin Road, March 1919
,
The Menin Road
.

The Wood
,
The Nation and The Athenæum
, vol. 30, no. 22, 25 February 1922.

Behind the Line
,
The Nation
, vol. 30, no. 6, 5 November 1921.

Somewhere in France (2)
,
Spectator
, vol. 115, no. 4552, 25 September 1915. Republished in
The Highway of Hades
. In the original publication lines 23–4 were omitted, ‘
He
’ in line 25 was not in italics, and there was no stanza break following line 26.

At Thiepval
,
Grapes of Thorns
.

A Father at the Grave of his Son
,
Nineteenth Century
, no. 513, November 1919.

Soldiers’ Headstones
. Inscriptions on the headstones of Commonwealth War Grave Commission graves in France and Gallipoli.

Perfect Epilogue
,
The Tears of War
.

Valete
,
Forty Poems
.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: L’ENVOI

The Other Side
,
The Poetical Works
, vol. 2. The Gaiety was a popular London theatre. A ‘five-nine’ (5.9) was a very destructive, much dreaded, German high-explosive shell. Alfred Lester was a music hall and revue artist; Nelson Keys (1886–1939) was a stage and cinema actor.