Published by theCommonwealth War Graves Commission

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POETS OF THE GREAT WAR

So much has been written about the First World War

It may be almost 90 years since it began, but the first conflictof truly global proportions continues to be a subject ofendless fascination even today, as histories, novels, televisionproductions, articles in the press and web sites on theinternet examine in minute detail, and from every conceivableangle, the war which took the lives of millions and left theworld a changed place.

So many words today, and it was the same then. In an erawhen one of the most natural forms of expression was toput pen to paper, those who actually played a part in the FirstWorld War seemed to experience an overwhelming needto ‘write it out’. The result was a wealth of letters, diaries,memoirs, prose, plays, fiction and, of course, poetry -almost 3,000 volumes of war poetry published during the warand in the years immediately following.

Coxyde Military Cemetery, Belgium

POETS OF THE GREAT WAR

So much has been written about the First World War

It may be almost 90 years since it began, but the first conflictof truly global proportions continues to be a subject ofendless fascination even today, as histories, novels, televisionproductions, articles in the press and web sites on theinternet examine in minute detail, and from every conceivableangle, the war which took the lives of millions and left theworld a changed place.

So many words today, and it was the same then. In an erawhen one of the most natural forms of expression was toput pen to paper, those who actually played a part in the FirstWorld War seemed to experience an overwhelming needto ‘write it out’. The result was a wealth of letters, diaries,memoirs, prose, plays, fiction and, of course, poetry -almost 3,000 volumes of war poetry published during the warand in the years immediately following.

Coxyde Military Cemetery, Belgium

THE SOLDIER POETS

"The subject of it is War, and the pity of WarThe Poetry is in the pity."Wilfred Owen

Almost everyone can repeat from memory a few lines of verse that cameout of the First World War: "If I should die, think only this of me...","In Flanders fields the poppies blow...", "What passing-bells for these whodie as cattle?...". There is no doubt that the war poets have done much toshape the way we see the First World War today - as spectators, participantsand victims, they produced poems that may shock, but speak with theauthority of the eye witness.

The soldier poets came from a surprising range of backgrounds, bothprivileged and poor, and served at all levels in the armed forces. Some wentto war riding a wave of patriotic idealism, others out of a sense of obligation,or because they were compelled to go. A number were already establishedas writers and poets, others made their reputation on the basis of their wartimeoutput. Most, though, were ordinary men, simply seeking in poetry a meansof expressing the weight of their wartime experience, or their nostalgia fora way of life that would never be the same again.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemorates more thaneighty published soldier poets who lost their lives during the First WorldWar. Some of them produced truly great poems, the work of others ispractically forgotten, but all represent lives cut short and potential unfulfilled.

In these pages you will find a few of their stories and words; at least somewill be familiar to you and their poems are easy to find elsewhere, butexamples of the work of some of the less well known poets are reproducedhere. There will also be a few historical events, literary terms andpersonalities you will need to research for yourselves.

‘Dulce et Decorum est’Text taken from actual writings by Wilfred Owen

THE SOLDIER POETS

"The subject of it is War, and the pity of WarThe Poetry is in the pity."Wilfred Owen

Almost everyone can repeat from memory a few lines of verse that cameout of the First World War: "If I should die, think only this of me...","In Flanders fields the poppies blow...", "What passing-bells for these whodie as cattle?...". There is no doubt that the war poets have done much toshape the way we see the First World War today - as spectators, participantsand victims, they produced poems that may shock, but speak with theauthority of the eye witness.

The soldier poets came from a surprising range of backgrounds, bothprivileged and poor, and served at all levels in the armed forces. Some wentto war riding a wave of patriotic idealism, others out of a sense of obligation,or because they were compelled to go. A number were already establishedas writers and poets, others made their reputation on the basis of their wartimeoutput. Most, though, were ordinary men, simply seeking in poetry a meansof expressing the weight of their wartime experience, or their nostalgia fora way of life that would never be the same again.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission commemorates more thaneighty published soldier poets who lost their lives during the First WorldWar. Some of them produced truly great poems, the work of others ispractically forgotten, but all represent lives cut short and potential unfulfilled.

In these pages you will find a few of their stories and words; at least somewill be familiar to you and their poems are easy to find elsewhere, butexamples of the work of some of the less well known poets are reproducedhere. There will also be a few historical events, literary terms andpersonalities you will need to research for yourselves.

‘Dulce et Decorum est’Text taken from actual writings by Wilfred Owen

RUPERT BROOKE(Sonnet cycle 1914: I Peace; II Safety; III The Dead; IV The Dead; V The Soldier)

If I should die, think only this of me:That there’s some corner of a foreign fieldThat is for ever England...

Using personal influence, Brooke gained a commission inthe Royal Naval Division in September 1914 and saw thelatter stages of the withdrawal from Antwerp in October.He embarked for the Dardanelles in April 1915, butcontracted septicaemia en route and died on a hospital shipin the Aegean two days before the Gallipoli landings.Brooke was buried in a solitary grave on the island of Skyros.

At the outbreak of war, Brooke was the leading light of theGeorgian movement. His five ‘war’ sonnets of 1914, uponwhich his reputation as a war poet rests, reflect acceptedattitudes at the outbreak of war - patriotism, idealism,sacrifice, romantic death - ideas abandoned by many laterpoets in the face of the realities of the trench warfare thatBrooke never experienced.

Young, handsome, talented and privileged, Brooke’s earlydeath came to symbolise the heroic sacrifice of the‘fallen warrior’.

His obituary in The Times was written by Winston Churchill.

Sub Lieutenant Rupert Chawner BROOKE,‘Hood’ Battalion, Royal Naval Division, RNVR,Died 23 April 1915, age 27; Skyros, Greece

If I should die, be not concerned to knowThe manner of my ending, if I fellLeading a forlorn charge against the foe,Strangled by gas, or shattered by a shell...

2nd Lieutenant Philip BAINBRIGGE,5th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers,Died 18 September 1918 age 27;Five Points Cemetery, Lechelle, France

Burial place of Rupert Brooke - Skyros, Greece

RUPERT BROOKE(Sonnet cycle 1914: I Peace; II Safety; III The Dead; IV The Dead; V The Soldier)

If I should die, think only this of me:That there’s some corner of a foreign fieldThat is for ever England...

Using personal influence, Brooke gained a commission inthe Royal Naval Division in September 1914 and saw thelatter stages of the withdrawal from Antwerp in October.He embarked for the Dardanelles in April 1915, butcontracted septicaemia en route and died on a hospital shipin the Aegean two days before the Gallipoli landings.Brooke was buried in a solitary grave on the island of Skyros.

At the outbreak of war, Brooke was the leading light of theGeorgian movement. His five ‘war’ sonnets of 1914, uponwhich his reputation as a war poet rests, reflect acceptedattitudes at the outbreak of war - patriotism, idealism,sacrifice, romantic death - ideas abandoned by many laterpoets in the face of the realities of the trench warfare thatBrooke never experienced.

Young, handsome, talented and privileged, Brooke’s earlydeath came to symbolise the heroic sacrifice of the‘fallen warrior’.

His obituary in The Times was written by Winston Churchill.

Sub Lieutenant Rupert Chawner BROOKE,‘Hood’ Battalion, Royal Naval Division, RNVR,Died 23 April 1915, age 27; Skyros, Greece

If I should die, be not concerned to knowThe manner of my ending, if I fellLeading a forlorn charge against the foe,Strangled by gas, or shattered by a shell...

2nd Lieutenant Philip BAINBRIGGE,5th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers,Died 18 September 1918 age 27;Five Points Cemetery, Lechelle, France

Burial place of Rupert Brooke - Skyros, Greece

Trampled Clay

...We went to seek the dead; with rough respectTo roll their mangled bodies down the shadeOf crater-lips that shrieking shells had made...

Rifleman Colin MITCHELL B/567,3rd Battalion Rifle Brigade,Died 22 March 1918; Pozieres Memorial, France

CHARLES SORLEY(To Germany; When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead)

I do so wish that people would not deceive themselvesby talking of a just war. There is no such thing as a justwar. What we are doing is casting out Satan by Satan...

Sorley was studying in Germany just before the declaration of war in1914, but he returned to England and was commissioned into theSuffolk Regiment. He was sent to France at the end of May 1915, thento the Ploegsteert Wood area, south of Ypres in Belgium. At the endof September, Sorley moved north to join the autumn offensive and on13 October 1915, in the line near the Hohenzollern Redoubt north ofLoos, he was shot through the head and instantly killed.

Sorley was the first soldier poet to reject romanticism for reality; hiswork much admired by Robert Graves, was instrumental in shapingthe tradition of war poetry that followed.

Captain Charles Hamilton SORLEY, 7th Battalion Suffolk Regiment,Died 13 October 1915, age 20; Loos Memorial, France

JULIAN GRENFELL(Into Battle; A Prayer for Those on the Staff)

...I adore war.It is like a big picnic without the objectlessnessof a picnic. I’ve never been so well or so happy...

A regular officer with the Royal Dragoons since 1910, Grenfell wentimmediately to Flanders when war was declared, first seeing action atYpres in the autumn of 1914. In the months following he was awardedthe Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and was twice Mentioned inDespatches. In May 1915, Grenfell was seriously wounded by shrapnelat Hooge and died at a base hospital in Boulogne a few days later.

Grenfell had no serious literary pretensions, but his most significantpoem Into Battle, published three days after his death, is a frequentaddition to anthologies. This work reflects the conventionally idealisticand noble sentiments associated with fighting, common in the earlymonths of the war.

Captain The Hon Julian Henry Francis GRENFELL, DSO, 1st (Royal) Dragoons,Died 26 May 1915, age 27; Boulogne Eastern Cemetery, France

Text taken from actual writings by Julian Grenfell - Into BattleBoulogne Eastern Cemetery, France

Trampled Clay

...We went to seek the dead; with rough respectTo roll their mangled bodies down the shadeOf crater-lips that shrieking shells had made...

Rifleman Colin MITCHELL B/567,3rd Battalion Rifle Brigade,Died 22 March 1918; Pozieres Memorial, France

CHARLES SORLEY(To Germany; When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead)

I do so wish that people would not deceive themselvesby talking of a just war. There is no such thing as a justwar. What we are doing is casting out Satan by Satan...

Sorley was studying in Germany just before the declaration of war in1914, but he returned to England and was commissioned into theSuffolk Regiment. He was sent to France at the end of May 1915, thento the Ploegsteert Wood area, south of Ypres in Belgium. At the endof September, Sorley moved north to join the autumn offensive and on13 October 1915, in the line near the Hohenzollern Redoubt north ofLoos, he was shot through the head and instantly killed.

Sorley was the first soldier poet to reject romanticism for reality; hiswork much admired by Robert Graves, was instrumental in shapingthe tradition of war poetry that followed.

Captain Charles Hamilton SORLEY, 7th Battalion Suffolk Regiment,Died 13 October 1915, age 20; Loos Memorial, France

JULIAN GRENFELL(Into Battle; A Prayer for Those on the Staff)

...I adore war.It is like a big picnic without the objectlessnessof a picnic. I’ve never been so well or so happy...

A regular officer with the Royal Dragoons since 1910, Grenfell wentimmediately to Flanders when war was declared, first seeing action atYpres in the autumn of 1914. In the months following he was awardedthe Distinguished Service Order (DSO) and was twice Mentioned inDespatches. In May 1915, Grenfell was seriously wounded by shrapnelat Hooge and died at a base hospital in Boulogne a few days later.

Grenfell had no serious literary pretensions, but his most significantpoem Into Battle, published three days after his death, is a frequentaddition to anthologies. This work reflects the conventionally idealisticand noble sentiments associated with fighting, common in the earlymonths of the war.

Captain The Hon Julian Henry Francis GRENFELL, DSO, 1st (Royal) Dragoons,Died 26 May 1915, age 27; Boulogne Eastern Cemetery, France

Text taken from actual writings by Julian Grenfell - Into BattleBoulogne Eastern Cemetery, France

Their Dug-Out

The Company Sergeant-MajorAnd the Company Q.M.S.Have the snuggest little dug-outAnd a most superior mess.And if anything you’re needing,It’s always to be foundIn their handy little, sandy littledug-out underground....

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Walter BLACKALL,3rd Battalion The Buffs (East Kent Regiment),Died 24 March 1918, age 42; Arras Memorial, France

NOEL HODGSON(Back to Rest; Durham Cathedral; Before Action)

Death whining down from heaven,Death roaring from the ground,Death stinking in the nostril,Death shrill in every sound...

Hodgson was commissioned into the Devonshire Regiment in September1914. He went to France in July 1915 and in October he was awardedthe Military Cross (MC) and a Mention in Despatches. Hodgson was killedin action on the 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme,at Mansell Copse.

Hodgson was a poet in the Georgian tradition, but the nostalgia of hiswar poems is tempered with sincerity and resolution. Using the nameEdward Melbourne, he also published frank and often humorous articlesabout trench life.

"Pearson...he is my servant, and if he were Commander-in-Chief the warwould be over in a week. But I should get no baths..."

Lieutenant William Noel HODGSON, MC, 9th Battalion Devonshire Regiment,Died 1 July 1916, age 23; Devonshire Cemetery, Mametz, France

LESLIE COULSON(From an Outpost; War; The Rainbow; Who Made the Law?)

Coulson enlisted in September 1914 in the London Regiment (RoyalFusiliers). In December 1914, he was hospitalised in Malta with mumpsand wrote his first poem A Soldier in Hospital. In the autumn of 1915,he went on to serve at Gallipoli (where he was slightly wounded) and inEgypt. Coulson arrived in France in April 1916. He was on the Sommein the summer of 1916; on 8 October he was shot in the chest during anattack at Bray Citadel and died at a casualty clearing station.Coulson had a background in journalism and was working as a Reuterscorrespondent in London at the outbreak of war. Something of a militantvoice, his war poetry is heavy with nostalgia for the English countrysidehe loved but could not reconcile with the horrors of life at the front.

"And this murder of old stone, and lichened thatches,this shattering of little old churches and homesteadsbrings the tragedy home to me more acutely. I thinkto find an English village like this would almostbreak my heart..."

Serjeant Leslie COULSON 7522, 2nd/2nd Battalion London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers)attached 12th Bn London Regiment (The Rangers),Died 8 October 1916, age 27; Grove Town Cemetery, Meaulte, France

Devonshire Cemetery, Mametz, FranceArras Memorial, France

Their Dug-Out

The Company Sergeant-MajorAnd the Company Q.M.S.Have the snuggest little dug-outAnd a most superior mess.And if anything you’re needing,It’s always to be foundIn their handy little, sandy littledug-out underground....

Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Walter BLACKALL,3rd Battalion The Buffs (East Kent Regiment),Died 24 March 1918, age 42; Arras Memorial, France

NOEL HODGSON(Back to Rest; Durham Cathedral; Before Action)

Death whining down from heaven,Death roaring from the ground,Death stinking in the nostril,Death shrill in every sound...

Hodgson was commissioned into the Devonshire Regiment in September1914. He went to France in July 1915 and in October he was awardedthe Military Cross (MC) and a Mention in Despatches. Hodgson was killedin action on the 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme,at Mansell Copse.

Hodgson was a poet in the Georgian tradition, but the nostalgia of hiswar poems is tempered with sincerity and resolution. Using the nameEdward Melbourne, he also published frank and often humorous articlesabout trench life.

"Pearson...he is my servant, and if he were Commander-in-Chief the warwould be over in a week. But I should get no baths..."

Lieutenant William Noel HODGSON, MC, 9th Battalion Devonshire Regiment,Died 1 July 1916, age 23; Devonshire Cemetery, Mametz, France

LESLIE COULSON(From an Outpost; War; The Rainbow; Who Made the Law?)

Coulson enlisted in September 1914 in the London Regiment (RoyalFusiliers). In December 1914, he was hospitalised in Malta with mumpsand wrote his first poem A Soldier in Hospital. In the autumn of 1915,he went on to serve at Gallipoli (where he was slightly wounded) and inEgypt. Coulson arrived in France in April 1916. He was on the Sommein the summer of 1916; on 8 October he was shot in the chest during anattack at Bray Citadel and died at a casualty clearing station.Coulson had a background in journalism and was working as a Reuterscorrespondent in London at the outbreak of war. Something of a militantvoice, his war poetry is heavy with nostalgia for the English countrysidehe loved but could not reconcile with the horrors of life at the front.

"And this murder of old stone, and lichened thatches,this shattering of little old churches and homesteadsbrings the tragedy home to me more acutely. I thinkto find an English village like this would almostbreak my heart..."

Serjeant Leslie COULSON 7522, 2nd/2nd Battalion London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers)attached 12th Bn London Regiment (The Rangers),Died 8 October 1916, age 27; Grove Town Cemetery, Meaulte, France

Devonshire Cemetery, Mametz, FranceArras Memorial, France

JOHN McCRAE(In Flanders Fields; The Anxious Dead)

We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived...

McCrae served initially as Brigade Surgeon with theCanadian Field Artillery in the Ypres Salient in 1915.In the summer of that year he was transferred to theCanadian Army Medical Corps as 2nd I/C No 3Canadian Hospital at Wimereux. He died there, on28 January 1918, of pneumonia.

McCrae was interested in poetry and the arts but wasprimarily a physician and professional soldier. He isremembered today for In Flanders Fields - among thebest known poems of the First World War - writtenat his dressing station beside what is now Essex FarmCemetery near Ypres on 3 May 1915, the day afterhe had officiated at the funeral of his friend and formerstudent, Lt Alexis Helmer.

Lieutenant-Colonel John McCRAE, Canadian Army Medical Corps,Died 28 January 1918, age 45; Wimereux Communal Cemetery, France

Ici Repose

A little cross of weather-silvered wood,Hung with a garish wreath of tinselled wire,And on it carved a legend - thus it runs:

"Ici repose -" Add what name you will,And multiply by thousands: in the fields,Along the roads, beneath the trees - one here,A dozen there, to each its simple taleOf one more jewel threaded star-like onThe sacrificial rosary of France....

2nd Lieutenant Bernard Freeman TROTTER,11th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment,Died 7 May 1917 age 26; Mazingarbe CommunalCemetery Extension, France

Text taken from memorial plaque Wimereux Communal CemeteryWimereux Communal Cemetery, France

JOHN McCRAE(In Flanders Fields; The Anxious Dead)

We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived...

McCrae served initially as Brigade Surgeon with theCanadian Field Artillery in the Ypres Salient in 1915.In the summer of that year he was transferred to theCanadian Army Medical Corps as 2nd I/C No 3Canadian Hospital at Wimereux. He died there, on28 January 1918, of pneumonia.

McCrae was interested in poetry and the arts but wasprimarily a physician and professional soldier. He isremembered today for In Flanders Fields - among thebest known poems of the First World War - writtenat his dressing station beside what is now Essex FarmCemetery near Ypres on 3 May 1915, the day afterhe had officiated at the funeral of his friend and formerstudent, Lt Alexis Helmer.

Lieutenant-Colonel John McCRAE, Canadian Army Medical Corps,Died 28 January 1918, age 45; Wimereux Communal Cemetery, France

Ici Repose

A little cross of weather-silvered wood,Hung with a garish wreath of tinselled wire,And on it carved a legend - thus it runs:

"Ici repose -" Add what name you will,And multiply by thousands: in the fields,Along the roads, beneath the trees - one here,A dozen there, to each its simple taleOf one more jewel threaded star-like onThe sacrificial rosary of France....

2nd Lieutenant Bernard Freeman TROTTER,11th Battalion Leicestershire Regiment,Died 7 May 1917 age 26; Mazingarbe CommunalCemetery Extension, France

Text taken from memorial plaque Wimereux Communal CemeteryWimereux Communal Cemetery, France

Spring ‘Out Here’

The weeds on the Parapet,Lift to the sunshine,Across the sad landscape,Still, wrecked, and torn.The bright stars of natureDisguise the grim shell-holes,And o’er the desolationA new life is born...

Private John Stephen Marcus BAKER 365092,2nd/7th London Regiment,Died 8 August 1918; Vis-en-Artois Memorial, France

EDWARD THOMAS(The Private; In Memoriam (Easter 1915);This is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong; As the Team’s Head-Brass)

This is just goodbye...This is the last of England & over thereI shall say no more goodbyes...

Thomas enlisted as a private in the Artists’ Rifles in July 1915 and wascommissioned into the Royal Garrison Artillery in August 1916, arrivingin France in January 1917. During the opening artillery bombardment ofthe first day of the Battle of Arras, 9 April 1917, Thomas was killed by ashell blast as he stood at the Beaurains Observation Post.

An established essayist and critic, Thomas turned to poetry under theinfluence of his friend, the American poet Robert Frost. All of his poemswere written between December 1914 and January 1917 before hisdeparture for France; they reflect his devotion to the English countrysideand love of the pastoral, even when the subject is war.

"...with darker bands of dense barbed wire. I could hear the blackbirdschinking as they do at nightfall. A rifle cracked sometimes. During theday a skylark was singing in No Man’s Land..."

2nd Lieutenant Philip Edward THOMAS, 244th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery,Died 9 April 1917; Agny Military Cemetery, France

ELLIS EVANS (HEDD WYNN)(War; The Hero)

From a farming family in rural Monmouthshire, Evans had no intentionof fighting, but was conscripted into the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in February1917. He was allowed home for a few weeks that spring to help with thefarm, but was in France by June 1917. On 31 July 1917, the first day of the3rd Battle of Ypres, he was hit by a piece of trench mortar shell nearLangemark and died at a nearby aid post.

Evans was largely self educated and showed an early talent for poetry inthe Welsh bardic tradition. He took the first of the six poetry chairs hewould win in competition in 1907 and was awarded his bardic name HeddWyn (‘white peace’) in 1910. Soon after his departure on active service,he completed Yr Arwr (The Hero), his entry for the 1917 NationalEisteddfod, for which he was posthumously awarded the poetry chair.

My muse was a deep cryAnd all the ages to come will hear it...

Private Ellis Humphrey EVANS 61117, 15th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers,Died 31 July 1917, age 30; Artillery Wood Cemetery, Boezinge, Belgium Text taken from actual writings by Edward Thomas

Artillery Wood Cemetery, Boezinge, Belgium

Spring ‘Out Here’

The weeds on the Parapet,Lift to the sunshine,Across the sad landscape,Still, wrecked, and torn.The bright stars of natureDisguise the grim shell-holes,And o’er the desolationA new life is born...

Private John Stephen Marcus BAKER 365092,2nd/7th London Regiment,Died 8 August 1918; Vis-en-Artois Memorial, France

EDWARD THOMAS(The Private; In Memoriam (Easter 1915);This is No Case of Petty Right or Wrong; As the Team’s Head-Brass)

This is just goodbye...This is the last of England & over thereI shall say no more goodbyes...

Thomas enlisted as a private in the Artists’ Rifles in July 1915 and wascommissioned into the Royal Garrison Artillery in August 1916, arrivingin France in January 1917. During the opening artillery bombardment ofthe first day of the Battle of Arras, 9 April 1917, Thomas was killed by ashell blast as he stood at the Beaurains Observation Post.

An established essayist and critic, Thomas turned to poetry under theinfluence of his friend, the American poet Robert Frost. All of his poemswere written between December 1914 and January 1917 before hisdeparture for France; they reflect his devotion to the English countrysideand love of the pastoral, even when the subject is war.

"...with darker bands of dense barbed wire. I could hear the blackbirdschinking as they do at nightfall. A rifle cracked sometimes. During theday a skylark was singing in No Man’s Land..."

2nd Lieutenant Philip Edward THOMAS, 244th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery,Died 9 April 1917; Agny Military Cemetery, France

ELLIS EVANS (HEDD WYNN)(War; The Hero)

From a farming family in rural Monmouthshire, Evans had no intentionof fighting, but was conscripted into the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in February1917. He was allowed home for a few weeks that spring to help with thefarm, but was in France by June 1917. On 31 July 1917, the first day of the3rd Battle of Ypres, he was hit by a piece of trench mortar shell nearLangemark and died at a nearby aid post.

Evans was largely self educated and showed an early talent for poetry inthe Welsh bardic tradition. He took the first of the six poetry chairs hewould win in competition in 1907 and was awarded his bardic name HeddWyn (‘white peace’) in 1910. Soon after his departure on active service,he completed Yr Arwr (The Hero), his entry for the 1917 NationalEisteddfod, for which he was posthumously awarded the poetry chair.

My muse was a deep cryAnd all the ages to come will hear it...

Private Ellis Humphrey EVANS 61117, 15th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers,Died 31 July 1917, age 30; Artillery Wood Cemetery, Boezinge, Belgium Text taken from actual writings by Edward Thomas

Artillery Wood Cemetery, Boezinge, Belgium

Kismet

Opal fires in the Western sky(For that which is written must ever be),And a bullet comes droning, whining by,To the heart of a sentry close to me.

For some go early, and some go late(A dying scream in the evening air),And who is there that believes in FateAs a soul goes out in the sunset flare?

Lieutenant Richard Brereton MARRIOTT-SMITH,MC, 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers,Died 24 March 1918; Pozieres Memorial, France

T E HULME(Trenches: St Eloi; In the City Square)

My mind is a corridor.The minds about me are corridors.Nothing suggests itself.There is nothing to do but keep on.

At the outbreak of war, Hulme enlisted as a private in the HonourableArtillery Company and was in Flanders in January 1915. Wounded atSt Eloi in April 1915, he was invalided home and discharged. In March1916, Hulme returned to active service with a commission in theRoyal Marine Artillery and served at Nieuport on the Belgian coast.He was killed in September 1916.

Hulme was a large, robust, forceful individual and a dominant figurein London’s intellectual circles before the war. A poetical theoristand philosopher, the few poems he wrote himself were some of thefirst ‘modernist’ poems in English.

Lieutenant Thomas Ernest HULME, Royal Marine Artillery, Naval Siege Battery,Died 28 September 1917, age 34; Coxyde Military Cemetery, Belgium

FRANCIS LEDWIDGE(Ascension Thursday 1917; A Soldier’s Grave)

An Irish nationalist, Ledwidge nevertheless enlisted in the Royal IniskillingFusiliers in October 1914. In 1915 he served at Gallipoli and Salonika andspent four months in hospital in Cairo early in 1916. Ledwidge was in Franceby December 1916, serving at Arras in April 1917, then to the Ypres Salientin June. He was killed in action on 31 July 1917 at Pilckem Ridge.

Ledwidge was brought up in hardship and poverty; he worked in agricultureand as a labourer, but his first poem, published in 1910, helped him to gainthe patronage of the writer and literary figure Lord Dunsany. Ledwidge wasa prolific poet, mostly producing autobiographical or pastoral pieces aboutIreland; only a handful of his poems make subtle reference to the war.

"...a man on my right who was mortally hit said:‘It can’t be far off now’, and I began to wonder what itwas could not be far off. Then I knew it was death,and I kept repeating the dying man’s words:‘It can’t be far off now’..."

Lance Corporal Francis Edward LEDWIDGE 16138, 1st Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers,Died 31 July 1917, age 26; Artillery Wood Cemetery, Boezinge, Belgium

Text taken from actual Graves Registration Report FormGrove Town Cemetery, Meaulte, France

Kismet

Opal fires in the Western sky(For that which is written must ever be),And a bullet comes droning, whining by,To the heart of a sentry close to me.

For some go early, and some go late(A dying scream in the evening air),And who is there that believes in FateAs a soul goes out in the sunset flare?

Lieutenant Richard Brereton MARRIOTT-SMITH,MC, 2nd Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers,Died 24 March 1918; Pozieres Memorial, France

T E HULME(Trenches: St Eloi; In the City Square)

My mind is a corridor.The minds about me are corridors.Nothing suggests itself.There is nothing to do but keep on.

At the outbreak of war, Hulme enlisted as a private in the HonourableArtillery Company and was in Flanders in January 1915. Wounded atSt Eloi in April 1915, he was invalided home and discharged. In March1916, Hulme returned to active service with a commission in theRoyal Marine Artillery and served at Nieuport on the Belgian coast.He was killed in September 1916.

Hulme was a large, robust, forceful individual and a dominant figurein London’s intellectual circles before the war. A poetical theoristand philosopher, the few poems he wrote himself were some of thefirst ‘modernist’ poems in English.

Lieutenant Thomas Ernest HULME, Royal Marine Artillery, Naval Siege Battery,Died 28 September 1917, age 34; Coxyde Military Cemetery, Belgium

FRANCIS LEDWIDGE(Ascension Thursday 1917; A Soldier’s Grave)

An Irish nationalist, Ledwidge nevertheless enlisted in the Royal IniskillingFusiliers in October 1914. In 1915 he served at Gallipoli and Salonika andspent four months in hospital in Cairo early in 1916. Ledwidge was in Franceby December 1916, serving at Arras in April 1917, then to the Ypres Salientin June. He was killed in action on 31 July 1917 at Pilckem Ridge.

Ledwidge was brought up in hardship and poverty; he worked in agricultureand as a labourer, but his first poem, published in 1910, helped him to gainthe patronage of the writer and literary figure Lord Dunsany. Ledwidge wasa prolific poet, mostly producing autobiographical or pastoral pieces aboutIreland; only a handful of his poems make subtle reference to the war.

"...a man on my right who was mortally hit said:‘It can’t be far off now’, and I began to wonder what itwas could not be far off. Then I knew it was death,and I kept repeating the dying man’s words:‘It can’t be far off now’..."

Lance Corporal Francis Edward LEDWIDGE 16138, 1st Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers,Died 31 July 1917, age 26; Artillery Wood Cemetery, Boezinge, Belgium

Text taken from actual Graves Registration Report FormGrove Town Cemetery, Meaulte, France

ISAAC ROSENBERG(Break of Day in the Trenches; Louse Hunting: Dead Man’s Dump)

I will not leave a corner of my consciousness coveredup, but will saturate myself with the strange andextraordinary new conditions of this life, and it willrefine itself into poetry later on...

When war broke out, Rosenberg was in South Africa, where he hadgone for the sake of his health. He returned to England in March1915 and, though detesting war and with no patriotic motivation,he enlisted with the 12th Suffolks, a Bantam battalion, having beenrejected by the Royal Army Medical Corps because of his size. Inthe spring of 1916, he transferred to the 11th Bn King’s Own RoyalLancaster Regiment and was in France in June. An ‘unsoldierly’soldier, Rosenberg spent the next two years being passed from oneunit to another, never really fitting in. In March 1918 he was withthe 1st Bn King’s Own Royal Lancasters in the Arras sector, whenthe German spring offensive was launched. He was killed in theearly hours of 1 April 1918 while out on patrol.

Rosenberg was the son of Jewish Russian immigrants. He grew upin extreme poverty, but was a talented painter and poet, studyingat Birkbeck College and later at the Slade School of Art. EdwardMarsh, the editor of Georgian Poetry, encouraged him in hiswriting and introduced him to important literary and intellectualfigures including Ezra Pound. Rosenberg found army life veryhard; he was bullied and victimised because of his faith, class andartistic temperament, and through his frailty and poor health hesuffered real physical hardship. The modernity of Rosenberg’spoetic voice is plain from his very earliest work, but it is the highlydistinctive poems he produced as a soldier, with their clarity oflanguage and compassionate detachment, that are best known today.

"I’ve been forbidden to send poems home, as the censor won’t bebothered with going through such rubbish..."

Private Isaac ROSENBERG 22311,1st Battalion King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment,Died 1 April 1918, age 27; Bailleul Road East Cemetery, St Laurent-Blagny, France

Text taken from actual writings by Isaac Rosenberg -Break of Day in the TrenchesBailleul Road East Cemetery, St Laurent-Blagny, France

ISAAC ROSENBERG(Break of Day in the Trenches; Louse Hunting: Dead Man’s Dump)

I will not leave a corner of my consciousness coveredup, but will saturate myself with the strange andextraordinary new conditions of this life, and it willrefine itself into poetry later on...

When war broke out, Rosenberg was in South Africa, where he hadgone for the sake of his health. He returned to England in March1915 and, though detesting war and with no patriotic motivation,he enlisted with the 12th Suffolks, a Bantam battalion, having beenrejected by the Royal Army Medical Corps because of his size. Inthe spring of 1916, he transferred to the 11th Bn King’s Own RoyalLancaster Regiment and was in France in June. An ‘unsoldierly’soldier, Rosenberg spent the next two years being passed from oneunit to another, never really fitting in. In March 1918 he was withthe 1st Bn King’s Own Royal Lancasters in the Arras sector, whenthe German spring offensive was launched. He was killed in theearly hours of 1 April 1918 while out on patrol.

Rosenberg was the son of Jewish Russian immigrants. He grew upin extreme poverty, but was a talented painter and poet, studyingat Birkbeck College and later at the Slade School of Art. EdwardMarsh, the editor of Georgian Poetry, encouraged him in hiswriting and introduced him to important literary and intellectualfigures including Ezra Pound. Rosenberg found army life veryhard; he was bullied and victimised because of his faith, class andartistic temperament, and through his frailty and poor health hesuffered real physical hardship. The modernity of Rosenberg’spoetic voice is plain from his very earliest work, but it is the highlydistinctive poems he produced as a soldier, with their clarity oflanguage and compassionate detachment, that are best known today.

"I’ve been forbidden to send poems home, as the censor won’t bebothered with going through such rubbish..."

Private Isaac ROSENBERG 22311,1st Battalion King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment,Died 1 April 1918, age 27; Bailleul Road East Cemetery, St Laurent-Blagny, France

Text taken from actual writings by Isaac Rosenberg -Break of Day in the TrenchesBailleul Road East Cemetery, St Laurent-Blagny, France

WILFRED OWEN(Strange Meeting; Futility; Greater Love)

I have not seen any dead.I have done worse.In the dank air I have perceived it,and in the darkness felt...

Owen was teaching in Bordeaux when war broke out in August1914. He returned to England in September 1915 and enlisted in theArtists’ Rifles. Commissioned into the Manchester Regiment in June1916, he first arrived in France in January 1917, but was invalidedhome with neurasthenia (shell-shock) in May. Owen was sent toCraiglockhart War Hospital, Edinburgh, for treatment where he metSiegfried Sassoon and wrote his first war poems Dulce et DecorumEst, Anthem for Doomed Youth in October 1917. He was declared fitfor service in November 1917 but did not return to France untilAugust 1918. Owen was awarded the Military Cross (MC) in October,a few weeks before he was killed in action on 4 November 1918leading his men across the Sambre-Oise Canal. As the church bellsrang out to celebrate the Armistice, Owen’s mother was readingthe telegram announcing his death.

Sensitive and cultured, poetry was central to Owen’s life. His earlywork shows the romantic influence of Keats and the modernFrench poets, but under Sassoon’s guidance he achieved poetic realismin his mature war poems. In his unique poetic response to the horrorsof war, Owen explored trauma, poignancy, compassion, truth, andabove all profound pity. Only four of his poems were publishedduring his lifetime.

"I came out in order to help these boys - directly by leading themas well as an officer can; indirectly, by watching their sufferings thatI may speak of them as well as a pleader can. I have done the first..."

Lieutenant Wilfred Edward Salter OWEN, MC,5th Battalion Manchester Regiment,Died 4 November 1918, age 25; Ors Communal Cemetery, France

From a Base Hospital in France

Christ! I am blind!God give me strength to bearThat which I most have dreaded all my days:The palsied shuffling, grasping air,The moving prison five foot square,The haunting step that isn’t there -These pictures dance before mysightless gaze....

Lieutenant-ColonelJohn Henry Maitland HARDYMAN, DSO, MC,8th Battalion Somerset Light Infantry,Died 24 August 1918 age 23,Bienvillers Military Cemetery, France

Text taken from actual letter to Mrs OwenOrs Communal Cemetery, France

WILFRED OWEN(Strange Meeting; Futility; Greater Love)

I have not seen any dead.I have done worse.In the dank air I have perceived it,and in the darkness felt...

Owen was teaching in Bordeaux when war broke out in August1914. He returned to England in September 1915 and enlisted in theArtists’ Rifles. Commissioned into the Manchester Regiment in June1916, he first arrived in France in January 1917, but was invalidedhome with neurasthenia (shell-shock) in May. Owen was sent toCraiglockhart War Hospital, Edinburgh, for treatment where he metSiegfried Sassoon and wrote his first war poems Dulce et DecorumEst, Anthem for Doomed Youth in October 1917. He was declared fitfor service in November 1917 but did not return to France untilAugust 1918. Owen was awarded the Military Cross (MC) in October,a few weeks before he was killed in action on 4 November 1918leading his men across the Sambre-Oise Canal. As the church bellsrang out to celebrate the Armistice, Owen’s mother was readingthe telegram announcing his death.

Sensitive and cultured, poetry was central to Owen’s life. His earlywork shows the romantic influence of Keats and the modernFrench poets, but under Sassoon’s guidance he achieved poetic realismin his mature war poems. In his unique poetic response to the horrorsof war, Owen explored trauma, poignancy, compassion, truth, andabove all profound pity. Only four of his poems were publishedduring his lifetime.

"I came out in order to help these boys - directly by leading themas well as an officer can; indirectly, by watching their sufferings thatI may speak of them as well as a pleader can. I have done the first..."

Lieutenant Wilfred Edward Salter OWEN, MC,5th Battalion Manchester Regiment,Died 4 November 1918, age 25; Ors Communal Cemetery, France

From a Base Hospital in France

Christ! I am blind!God give me strength to bearThat which I most have dreaded all my days:The palsied shuffling, grasping air,The moving prison five foot square,The haunting step that isn’t there -These pictures dance before mysightless gaze....

Lieutenant-ColonelJohn Henry Maitland HARDYMAN, DSO, MC,8th Battalion Somerset Light Infantry,Died 24 August 1918 age 23,Bienvillers Military Cemetery, France

Text taken from actual letter to Mrs OwenOrs Communal Cemetery, France

AT LAST POST

Come home! - Come home!The winds are at rest in the restful trees;At rest are the waves of the sundown seas;And home - they’re home -The wearied hearts and the broken lives -At home! At ease!

2nd Lieutenant W L WILKINSON,

1st/8th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders,

Died 9 April 1917; Roclincourt Military Cemetery, France

AT LAST POST

Come home! - Come home!The winds are at rest in the restful trees;At rest are the waves of the sundown seas;And home - they’re home -The wearied hearts and the broken lives -At home! At ease!

2nd Lieutenant W L WILKINSON,

1st/8th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders,

Died 9 April 1917; Roclincourt Military Cemetery, France

Published by theCommonwealth War Graves Commission

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