The General

'Good morning, good morning!' the general said
When we met him last week on our way to the line.
Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of 'em dead,
And we were cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
'He's a cherry old card', grunted Harry to Jack
As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack.

But he did for them both by his plan of attack.


-Siegfried Sassoon
Written in April 1917

Field Manoeuvres

The long autumn grass under my body
Soaks my clothes with its dew;
Where my knees press into the ground
I can feel the damp earth.

In my nostrils is the smell of crushed grass,
Wet pine-cones and bark.

Through the great bronze pine trunks
Glitters a silver segment of road.
Interminable squadrons of silver and blue horses
Pace in long ranks the blank fields of heaven.

There is no sound;
The wind hisss gently through the pine needles;

The flutter of a finch's wings about my head
Is like distant thunder,
And the shrill cry of a mosquito
Sounds loud and close.

I am 'to fire at the enemy column
After it has passed'-
But my obsolete rifle, loaded with 'blank',
Lies untouched before me,
My spirit follows after the gliding clouds,
And my lips murmur of the mother beauty
Standing breast-high, in golden broom
Among the blue-pine-woods.

Published in 1917, Form the 'Poetry of the first World War'

Richard Aldington (1892 - 1962): Educated at Dover college and London university. He volunteered in 1914, but was rejected on medical grounds. He was able to enlist in 1916, joining the Royal Sussex Regiment as a private. In 1918 he was invalidated out ( as a lieutenant) suffering from shell shock and the effects of gas. After the war he wrote Death of a Hero and several biographies.

Noon

It is midday; the deep trench glares...
A buzz and blaze of flies...
The hot wind puffs the giddy airs...
The great sun rakes the skies.

No sound in all the stagnant trench
Where forty standing men
Endure the sweat and grit and stench,
Like cattle in a pen.

Sometimes a sniper's bullet whirs
Or twangs the whining wire;
Sometimes a soldier sighs and stirs
As in Hell's frying fire.

From out a high cool cloud descends
As aeroplane's far moan...
The sun strikes down, the thin cloud rends
The black spot travels on.

And sweating, dizzied, isolate
In the hot trench beneath,
We bide the next shrewd move of fate
Be it of life or death.

Robert Nichols (1893-1944)


From 'Poetry of the first world war', published in June 1917

Nichols' First World War military service - which lasted from from 1914-16 - saw him participate in the Battle of Loos in 1915 in the role of artillery officer.

His front-line service was however brief - after just a few weeks serving in the trenches he was invalided home with shell shock; an illness which caused him to be sent home to England in 1916. Subsequently serving with the British Ministry of Labour and Ministry of Information, he went on to pen war poetry that he often read to large gatherings, which included tours of the U.S.

Little Johnny's confession

THIS MORNING
...................being rather young and foolish
.........I borrowed a machinegun my father
.........had left hidden since the war, went out,
.........and eliminated a number of small enemies.
.........Since then I have not returned home.

This morning
.......swarms of police with tackerdogs
.......wander about the city
.......with my description printed
.......on their minds, asking:
.......'Have you seen him ?
.......He is seven years old.
.......likes Pluto, Mighty Mouse
.......and Biffo the Bear,
.......have you seen him, anywhere?'

This morning
.......sitting alone in a strange playground
.......muttering you've blundered, you've blundered
.......over and over to myself
.......I work out my next move
.......but cannot move.
.......The trackerdogs will sniff me out,
.......they have my lollypops.

-Brian Patten

She Tells Her Love While Half Asleep

She tells her love while half asleep,
........In the dark hours,
................With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
........And puts out grass and flowers
.................Despite the snow,
.................Despite the falling snow.

Robert Graves

Mixed Hockey

- P. G. Wodehouse

You came down the field like a shaft from a bow;
The vision remains with me yet.
I hastened to check you; the sequel you know;
Alas! we unluckily met.
You rushed at the ball, whirled your stick like a fail,
And you hit with the vigour of two:
A knight in his armour had surely turned pale,
If he had played hockey with you.

They gathered me up, and they took me to bed;
They called for a doctor and lint;
With ice in a bag they enveloped my head;
My arm they enclosed in a splint.
My ankles are swelled to a terrible size;
My shins are a wonderful blue;
I have lain here a cripple, unable to rise,
Since the day I played hockey with you.

Yet still, in the cloud hanging o'er me black,
A silvery lining I spy;
A man who's unhappily laid on his back
Can yet have a solace. May I ?
An angel is a women in moments of pain,
Sang Scot: clever poet, he knew.
It may, I perceive, be distinctly a gain
To have fallen in hockey with you.

For if you'll nurse me (Come quickly, come now),
If you'll but administer balm,
And press at my bidding my feverish brow
With a cool but affectionate palm;
If you'll sit by my side, it is possible quite,
That I may be induced to review
With a feeling more nearly akin to delight
That day I played hockey with you.

Without You

My pillow gazes upon me at night
Empty as a gravestone;
I never thought it would be so bitter
To be alone,
Not to lie down asleep in your hair.

I lie alone in a silent house,
The hanging lamp darkened,
And gently stretch out my hands
To gather in yours,
And softly press my warm mouth
Towards you, and kiss myself, exhausted and week -
Then suddenly I'm awake
And all around me the cold night grows still.
The star in the window shines clearly -
Where is your blonde hair,
Where your sweet mouth ?

Now I drink pain in every delight
And poison in every wine;
I never knew it would be so bitter
To be alone,
Alone, without you.


-Hermann Hesse

German ----> English
James Wright

Across the Fields

Some great news.
I have got back the clutch of poems I had posted on IISc poetry egroup long back. The ground rule was that we don't post poems written by us! And, soon we came across amazing stuff. And those days, I used to frequent the British Library, and which has a good collection of poetry books. So, I would carefully select a book, and pick a few that interest me, and post them. While I typed them, the poems sank, andz been a part of me.

But sometime, during machine migration, I had lost them all. And now, thanks a zillion to Ashish, they are here.

Hope to post them now & then. Today, one of my favourite writers - Hermann Hesse.

Across the Fields ....

Across the sky, the clouds move,
Across the fields, the wind,
Across the fields, the lost child
Of my mother wanders.

Across the street, leaves blow,
Across the trees, birds cry -
Across the mountains, far away,
My home must be.

-Hermann Hesse

Translated from German by James Wright