For the Fallen

The human tragedy of World War One remembered... by our nation’s greatest poets

They ask me where I’ve been,And what I’ve done and seen.But what can I replyWho know it wasn’t I,But someone just like me,Who went across the seaAnd with my head and handsKilled men in foreign lands...Though I must bear the blame,Because he bore my name.

BackWilfrid Gibson (1878 -1962)

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The former soldier started writing poetry in 1914, aged 36. He wrote

‘Back’ the next year. Many soldiers were able to relate to this piece

when they came back to England with regrets and nightmares about

what they had seen and done.

Ultimate price: Italian soldiers lay in a trench after suffering at the hands of German machine guns at the Hill of Cividale, Italy

At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them

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From For The Fallen� by Lawrence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,England mourns for her dead across the sea.Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royalSings sorrow up into immortal spheres.There is music in the midst of desolationAnd a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.At the going down of the sun and in the morningWe will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;They sit no more at familiar tables of home;They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,To the innermost heart of their own land they are knownAs the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,To the end, to the end, they remain.

For the FallenLaurence Binyon (1869 - 1943)

Owen wrote this in September 1917 with the help

of fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon while both were

recovering from shellshock at Craiglockhart War

Hospital in Edinburgh.Owen returned to the

frontline in the summer of 1918 and died on November 4

that year aged 25... almost exactly a week to the hour

before the signing of the armistice.

Binyon wrote the poem in September 1914, perched on

a cliffside in Cornwall a few weeks after the breakout of the war. There is a plaque to

commemorate the spot.

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons.No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, –The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys but in their eyes Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall; Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Anthem For Doomed YouthWilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)

Over the top: British troops prepare themselves in trenches before an assault at Battle of the Somme in 1916

From The Soldier� by Rupert Brooke

Good-byee: a soldier bids a fond farewell to a loved one at London’s Victoria Station as he leaves for south coast before heading to the front

Written in 1917 in direct response to Rupert Brooke’s ‘The Soldier’, this is a

tribute to the soldiers’ sacrifice. Herschel-Clarke was best known for her anti-war poetry and this focuses on the feelings of the mothers whose

sons would never return.

If I should die, think only this of me, That there’s some corner of a foreign field that is forever England

The MotherMay Herschel-Clarke (1850 - 1950)If you should die, think only this of meIn that still quietness where is space for thought,Where parting, loss and bloodshed shall not be,And men may rest themselves and dream of nought:That in some place a mystic mile awayOne whom you loved has drained the bitter cupTill there is nought to drink; has faced the dayOnce more, and now, has raised the standard up.And think, my son, with eyes grown clear and dryShe lives as though for ever in your sight,Loving the things you loved, with heart aglowFor country, honour, truth, traditions high,– Proud that you paid their price. (And if some nightHer heart should break – well, lad, you will not know.

Watching over us: a crucifix survives shelling while troops lie scattered in this picture by teenage German gunner Walter Kleinfeldt

First recited from the pulpit of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1915 on Easter Sunday, then published the next day, it quickly became renowned as one of the finest war poems.Later that month Brooke died from an infected mosquito bite he got a month earlier sailing with the British Mediterranean Expeditionary force.

If I should die, think only this of me:That there’s some corner of a foreign fieldThat is forever England. There shall beIn that rich earth a richer dust concealed;A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,A body of England’s, breathing English air,Washed by the rivers, blest by the suns of home.And think, this heart, all evil shed away,A pulse in the eternal mind, no lessGives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

The SoldierRupert Brooke (1887 - 1915)

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Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge

Tender care: a nurse with wounded American soldiers in Florida, 1918

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Mudshed: soldiers in the trenches during the Battle of Passchendaele on November 1, 1917

From Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Owen’s most famous piece was originally drafted in October 1917 while he lay recovering from shellshock at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh.

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,Till on the haunting flares we turned our backsAnd towards our distant rest began to trudge.Men marched asleep. Many had lost their bootsBut limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could paceBehind the wagon that we flung him in,And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;If you could hear, at every jolt, the bloodCome gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory,The old Lie: Dulce et Decorum estPro patria mori.

Dulce et Decorum EstWilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)

Sassoon challenges the accepted propaganda of

the glory of war with this challenging and

shocking poem from 1918 about losing your limbs

during conflict.

Does it matter? – losing your legs?... For people will always be kind,And you need not show that you mindWhen others come in after huntingTo gobble their muffins and eggs.

Does it matter? – losing your sight?...There’s such splendid work for the blind; And people will always be kind,As you sit on the terrace rememberingAnd turning your face to the light.

Do they matter – those dreams in the pit?... You can drink and forget and be glad,And people won’t say that you’re mad; For they know that you’ve fought for your country,And no one will worry a bit.

Does it Matter?Siegfried Sassoon (1886 - 1967)

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Festive break: British troops attempt to celebrate Christmas Day with a meal together (top)

Respect: thousands gather for Armistice Day at London’s temporary Cenotaph at Whitehall in 1919

We are the Dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, loved and were loved

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae was a Canadian physician. After burying his friend and fellow soldier at Ypres, McCrae was drawn to poetry. His own worst critic, he discarded this work only for it to be discovered by other soldiers.

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Sign writer: British troop paints street names for the confusing criss-cross of trenches (above)

From In Flanders Fields by John McCrae

In Flanders fields the poppies blowBetween the crosses, row on row,That mark our place; and in the skyThe larks, still bravely singing, flyScarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days agoWe lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,Loved and were loved, and now we lieIn Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:To you from failing hands we throwThe torch; be yours to hold it high.If ye break faith with us who dieWe shall not sleep, though poppies growIn Flanders fields.

In Flanders FieldsJohn McCrae (1872 - 1918)

By using a Bishop’s sermon Sassoon

manages to show the Establishment’s

unconvincing stance on the fight. We have more

sympathy for the soldiers’ response and

find it difficult to find any comfort

in the final line.

The Bishop tells us: ‘When the boys come back‘They will not be the same; for they’ll have fought‘In a just cause: they lead the last attack‘On Anti-Christ; their comrades’ blood has bought‘New right to breed an honourable race,‘They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.’

‘We’re none of us the same!’ the boys reply.‘For George lost both his legs; and Bill’s stone blind;‘Poor Jim’s shot through the lungs and like to die;‘And Bert’s gone syphilitic: you’ll not find‘A chap who’s served that hasn’t found some change.‘And the Bishop said: ‘The ways of God are strange!’

TheySiegfried Sassoon (1886 - 1967)

Struggle: a wounded soldier crawls back to the snowy trenches near Arras in January 1917 Desperation: medics struggle with a wounded soldier on a

stretcher in knee-deep mud at Boesinghe in August 1917

That heaven might heal the world, they gave their earth-born dreams to deck the grave

From Marching Men by Marjorie Pickthall

After she was appointed poet laureate in 2009, Carol Ann Duffy wrote this poem to mark the death of Harry Patch, the last surviving veteran of the Great War.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin

that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud ...

but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood

run upwards from the slime into its wounds;

see lines and lines of British boys rewind

back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home –

mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers

not entering the story now

to die and die and die.

Dulce – No – Decorum – No – Pro patria mori.

You walk away.

You walk away; drop your gun ( fixed bayonet)

like all your mates do too –

Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert –

and light a cigarette.

There’s coffee in the square,

warm French bread

and all those thousands dead

are shaking dried mud from their hair

and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,

a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released

from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.

You lean against a wall,

your several million lives still possible

and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.

You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.

If poetry could truly tell it backwards,

then it would.

Last PostCarol Ann Duffy (1955 - )

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This is an example of the glorification of the

soldiers and their plight. By calling them Christs and referring to Heaven,

the soldiers’ sacrifice becomes glorified and moving. The religious imagery tries to show

all the soldiers who served were being

righteous and therefore would undoubtedly be

received in heaven.

Under the level winter skyI saw a thousand Christs go by.They sang an idle song and freeAs they went up to calvary.

Careless of eye and coarse of lip,They marched in holiest fellowship.That heaven might heal the world, they gaveTheir earth-born dreams to deck the grave.

With souls unpurged and steadfast breathThey supped the sacrament of death.And for each one, far off, apart,Seven swords have rent a woman’s heart.

Marching MenMarjorie Pickthall (1883 - 1922)

Patriotic fervour: thousands queue to sign up at a London Army recruiting office (top) in December 1915

Photos: Getty ImAGes, the huLton ArchIve, the ImPerIAL WAr museum, mIrrorPIx, PoPPerfoto, toPfoto, testImony fILms.

A selection of these poems are extracted from the Penguin Book of first World War Poetry, £8.99, Penguin. www.penguin.co.uk

If any question why we died...

From Epitaphs: Common Form by Rudyard Kipling

Listen to these World War One poems at mirror.co.uk/forthefallenand many others including Tina Malone reading The Volunteer by Herbert Asquith; Jeremy Vine reads Returning We Hear The Larks by Isaac Rosenburg; Sarah Jane Crawford reads On the Idle Hill of Summer by AE Housman; Kate Garraway reads War Girls byJessie Pope; Ruth Langsford reads Education by Pauline Barrington; Sharon Marshall reads May 1915 by Charlotte Mew; Eamonn Holmes reads Lights Out by Edward Thomas; Jeff Brazier reads If We Return by FW Harvey; Sarah Hewson reads To His Love by Ivor Gurney; Mark Austin reads My Boy Jack by Rudyard Kipling.

All aboard: troops leave from victoria station for the south coast on their way to the front in 1916 (above)

If any question why we died,Tell them, because our fathers lied.

Epitaphs: Common FormRudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936)

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JuLy 27, 2014

Kipling lost his only son at war, and this is a powerful lament for the youth who go out and

fight on the orders of older men who run the country.