III A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky IV A young beech tree on the edge of the forest Yet shudders through all its leaves in the light air So are you still and so tremble. V The red deer are high on the mountain, VI The flower which the wind has shaken So does my heart fill slowly with tears, Robert Nichols Robert Nichols was born on the Isle of Wight in 1893. His first volume, Invocations (1915), was published while he was at the front, Nichols having joined the army while he was still an undergraduate at Trinity College, Oxford. After serving one year as second lieutenant in the Royal Field Artillery, he was incapacitated by shell shock, visiting America in 1918-19 as a lecturer. His Ardours and Endurances (1917) is the most representative work of this poet, although The Flower of Flame (1920) shows an advance in power. NEARER Nearer and ever nearer Arms to have and to use them To endure for a little, Over me the sun! And should at last suddenly Fly the speeding death, The four great quarters of heaven Wilfred Owen Wilfred Owen's biography is pitifully brief. He was born at Oswestry on the 18th of March, 1893, was educated at the Birkenhead Institute, matriculated at London University in 1910, obtained a private tutorship in 1913 near Bordeaux and remained there for two years. In 1915, in spite of delicate health, he joined the Artist's Rifles, served in France from 1916 to June 1917, when he was invalided home. Fourteen months later, he returned to the Western Front, was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry in October and was killed-with tragic irony a week before the armistice, on November 4, 1918, while trying to get his men across the Sombre Canal. Owen's name was unknown to the world until his friend Siegfried Sassoon unearthed the contents of his posthumous volume, Poems (1920), to which Sassoon wrote the introduction. It was evident at once that here was one of the most important contributions to the literature of the War, expressed by a poet whose courage was only surpassed by his integrity of mind and his nobility of soul. The restrained passion as well as the pitiful outcries in Owen's poetry have a spiritual kinship with Sassoon's stark verses. They reflect that second stage of the war, when the glib patter wears thin and the easy patriotics have a sardonic sound in the dug-outs and trenches. "He never," writes Sassoon, "wrote his poems (as so many war-poets did) to make the effect of a personal gesture. He pitied others; he did not pity himself." It is difficult to choose among the score of Owen's compelling and compassionate poems. Time will undoubtedly make a place for lines as authentic as the magnificent "Apologia pro Poemate Meo," the poignant "Greater Love," the majestic dirge, "Anthem for Doomed Youth," among others. APOLOGIA PRO POEMATE MEO I, too, saw God through mud— The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches War brought more glory to their eyes than blood, Merry it was to laugh there— Where death becomes absurd and life absurder. I, too, have dropped off fear Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon, And witnessed exultation Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl, I have made fellowships Untold of happy lovers in old song. For love is not the binding of fair lips With the soft silk of eyes that look and long, By Joy, whose ribbon slips,— But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong; Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips; I have perceived much beauty In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight; Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate. Nevertheless, except you share With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell, You shall not hear their mirth: You shall not come to think them well content Your tears: You are not worth their merriment. ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells, What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; Charles Hamilton Sorley Charles Hamilton Sorley, who promised greater things than any of the younger poets, was born at Old Aberdeen in May, 1895. He studied at Marlborough College and University College, Oxford. He was finishing his studies abroad and was on a walking-tour along the banks of the Moselle when the war came. Sorley returned home to receive an immediate commission in the 7th Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment. In August, 1915, at the age of 20, he was made a captain. On October 13, 1915, he was killed in action near Hulluch. Sorley left but one book, Marlborough and Other Poems. The verse contained in it is sometimes rough but never rude. Restraint, tolerance, and a dignity unusual for a boy of 20, distinguish his poetry. |