For Remembrance. Soldier Poets Who Have Fallen in the War - Hardcover

Adcock, A. St John; A. St John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1847341691 ISBN 13: 9781847341693

Publisher: Naval & Military Press, 2006

Synopsis

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1918. Excerpt: ... And the same feeling stirring the same longings is in the sonnet to Oxford: . . . Trees draw their sacrifice of greenery From the old charnels that repose beneath; So let me feel the impulse of thy breath, Like an enchanter's spell, awakening me To thy new treasures of Eternity Bursting from out the pregnant soils of Death. . . . But two years saw the end of these dreams, when the war brought his Oxford career to a close. He won the Newdigate Prize of 1914 with his poem, 'The Burial of Sophocles'; and in the August of that year, just after war was declared, he obtained a commission in the Royal Scots Fusiliers. By the following February he was out in France, and was killed on the evening of St. George's Day, 1916, after holding his trench all day against the enemy's onslaughts. All the war verse in his book consists of two quatrains--one in memory of a friend, and one which may be taken as a response to Germany's famous or infamous Hymn: Ah, hate like this would freeze our human tears, And stab the morning star: Not it, not it commands and mourns and bears The storm and bitter glory of red war. Few of our soldier poets who have gone wrote verse so mature in thought and finished in style as Robert Sterling's. It might not seem a youth's imaginings, But to an Attic age might well belong, says Roger Quin, in his beautiful memorial sonnet; and there is one stanza of Sterling's 'Burial of Sophocles' that lingers with me as his own fitting epitaph: Ah, surely there is wonder and strange stir Amid Earth's guardian gods, when the last goal Hath gained the crown, and to Earth's sepulchre We bear the way-worn chariot of the soul! And surely here a memory shall last, In hill and grove and torrent, of this day, For bards to glean who can: and they shall sing How the sweet singer passed Forth to...

About this edition

• Publisher: Naval & Military Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1847341691
• ISBN 13: 9781847341693
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 296