War Poetry

An Oxford Retrospect: May 1915
(To R.W.L.)

May! - and I am no more among your spires,
Dear Mother-city of my soul.
May! - and my heart hath new desires,
My spirit seeks another goal.

The lilac purples in the meadows green,
The avenues of elms I walked between
Cast over Christ Church walk their welcome shade.
Now in the College garden tulips tall
Nod to the gnarled wistaria on the wall,
And bright laburnum clusters gild the glade.

Now livid snakesheads bloom in Iffley mead,
And golden king-cups and pale cuckoo-weed,
That children gather against market-day.
O'er the cloud-dappled Cumnor hills the shade
Chases the sunlight-there I oft have strayed
And watched dun much-cows munch the hours away.

The river flows as ever 'neath the trees,
But I no longer take thereon my ease
Where a pink hawthorn overhangs the stream.
Ah! lazy, languid idlings on the Cher,
Sweet lotus-eatings, while my soul ranged far,
In empty musing, through a vain day-dream.

Ah! days of yester-year, whose hours flew by,
As winds blow past the tent wherein I lie,
Heedless I let you go nor knew your span.
And yet - I would not have you back again,
Even amid the misery and pain
That now is making of the boy a man.

Next May! - And if I lie in some cold grave
Dear Mother-city of my soul,
I am content to yield the life you gave
If but I nobly reach the goal.

By Dynely Hussey

Ode To A Young Man
(Who Died of Wounds in Flanders, January 1915)

Can it be true that thou art dead
In the hour of thy youth, in the day of thy strength?
Must I believe thy soul has fled
Through heaven's length?

A scholar wast thou, learn'd in lore;
Poet was written in thine eyes.
Thou ne'er wast meant for bloody war
To seize in prize.

Yet when they asked thee, "Lo! what dost thou bring?"
Thou gav'st thyself,
Thou gav'st thy body, gav'st thy soul;
Thou gav'st thyself, one consecrated whole
To sacrificial torture for thy King.

O lovely youth, slaughtered at manhood's dawn,
In virgin purity thou liest dead,
And slaughtered were thy sons unborn,
With thee unwed.

Sleep on, pure youth, sleep at Earth's soothing breast,
No king's sarcophagus was e'er so fine
As that poor shallow soldier's grave of thine,
Where all ungarlanded thou tak'st thy rest.

by Dynely Hussey