Antwerp

by Ford Madox Ford, Wyndham Lewis (Illustrator)

{ 15.34 x 23.59 cms} Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden Leaf Printing on round Spine (extra customization on request like complete leather, Golden Screen printing in Front, Color Leather, Colored book etc.) Reprinted in 2016 with the help of original edition published long back [1915]. This book is printed in black & white, sewing binding for longer life, printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. If it is multi volume set, then it is only single volume, if you wish to order a specific or all the volumes you may contact us. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. - English, Pages 13. EXTRA 10 DAYS APART FROM THE NORMAL SHIPPING PERIOD WILL BE REQUIRED FOR LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. COMPLETE LEATHER WILL COST YOU EXTRA US$ 25 APART FROM THE LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. {FOLIO EDITION IS ALSO AVAILABLE.} Complete Antwerp 1915 Ford Madox Ford, Wyndham Lewis

8 pages, Nook

First published January 1, 1915

About the author

Ford Madox Ford was an English novelist, poet, critic and editor whose journals The English Review and The Transatlantic Review were important in the development of early 20th-century English and American literature.

Ford is now remembered for his novels The Good Soldier (1915), the Parade's End tetralogy (1924–1928) and The Fifth Queen trilogy (1906–1908). The Good Soldier is frequently included among the great literature of the 20th century, including the Modern Library 100 Best Novels, The Observer′s "100 Greatest Novels of All Time", and The Guardian′s "1000 novels everyone must read".

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

In October 1914 [Antwerp]


I 
GLOOM! 
An October like November; 
August a hundred thousand hours, 
And all September, 
A hundred thousand, dragging sunlit days, 
And half October like a thousand years . . . 
And doom! 
That then was Antwerp. . . 
 In the name of God, 
How could they do it? 
Those souls that usually dived 
Into the dirty caverns of mines; 
Who usually hived 
In whitened hovels; under ragged poplars; 
Who dragged muddy shovels, over the grassy mud, 
Lumbering to work over the greasy sods. . . 
Those men there, with the appearance of clods 
Were the bravest men that a usually listless priest of God 
Ever shrived. . . 
And it is not for us to make them an anthem. 
If we found words there would come no wind that would fan them 
To a tune that the trumpets might blow it, 
Shrill through the heaven that's ours or yet Allah's, 
Or the wide halls of any Valhallas. 
We can make no such anthem. So that all that is ours 
For inditing in sonnets, pantoums, elegiacs, or lays 
Is this: 
“In the name of God, how could they do it?” 


II 
For there is no new thing under the sun, 
Only this uncomely man with a smoking gun 
In the gloom. . . 
What the devil will he gain by it? 
Digging a hole in the mud and standing all day in the rain by it 
Waiting his doom; 
The sharp blow, the swift outpouring of the blood, 
Till the trench of gray mud 
Is turned to a brown purple drain by it. 
Well, there have been scars 
Won in many wars . . .
Punic, 
Lacedæmonian, wars of Napoleon, wars for faith, wars for honour, for love, for possession, 
But this Belgian man in his ugly tunic, 
His ugly round cap, shooting on, in a sort of obsession, 
Overspreading his miserable land, 
Standing with his wet gun in his hand . . . 
Doom! 
He finds that in a sudden scrimmage, 
And lies, an unsightly lump on the sodden grass . . . 
An image that shall take long to pass! 


III 
For the white-limbed heroes of Hellas ride by upon their horses 
Forever through our brains. 
The heroes of Cressy ride by upon their stallions; 
And battalions and battalions and battalions— 
The Old Guard, the Young Guard, the men of Minden and of Waterloo, 
Pass, for ever staunch, 
Stand, for ever true; 
And the small man with the large paunch, 
And the gray coat, and the large hat, and the hands behind the back, 
Watches them pass 
In our minds for ever . . . 
But that clutter of sodden corses 
On the sodden Belgian grass— 
That is a strange new beauty. 


IV 
With no especial legends of marchings or triumphs or duty, 
Assuredly that is the way of it, 
The way of beauty . . . 
And that is the highest word you can find to say of it. 
For you cannot praise it with words 
Compounded of lyres and swords, 
But the thought of the gloom and the rain 
And the ugly coated figure, standing beside a drain, 
Shall eat itself into your brain: 
And you will say of all heroes, “They fought like the Belgians!” 
And you will say: “He wrought like a Belgian his fate out of gloom.” 
And you will say: “He bought like a Belgian his doom.” 
And that shall be an honourable name; 
“Belgian” shall be an honourable word; 
As honourable as the fame of the sword, 
As honourable as the mention of the many-chorded lyre, 
And his old coat shall seem as beautiful as the fabrics woven in Tyre. 


V 
And what in the world did they bear it for? 
I don't know. 
And what in the world did they dare it for? 
Perhaps that is not for the likes of me to understand. 
They could very well have watched a hundred legions go 
Over their fields and between their cities 
Down into more southerly regions. 
They could very well have let the legions pass through their woods, 
And have kept their lives and their wives and their children and cattle and goods. 
I don't understand. 
Was it just love of their land? 
Oh, poor dears! 
Can any man so love his land? 
Give them a thousand thousand pities 
And rivers and rivers of tears 
To wash off the blood from the cities of Flanders. 


VI 
This is Charing Cross; 
It is midnight; 
There is a great crowd 
And no light. 
A great crowd, all black that hardly whispers aloud. 
Surely, that is a dead woman—a dead mother! 
She has a dead face; 
She is dressed all in black; 
She wanders to the bookstall and back, 
At the back of the crowd; 
And back again and again back, 
She sways and wanders. 

This is Charing Cross; 
It is one o'clock. 
There is still a great cloud, and very little light; 
Immense shafts of shadows over the black crowd 
That hardly whispers aloud. . . 
And now! . . That is another dead mother, 
And there is another and another and another. . . 
And little children, all in black, 
All with dead faces, waiting in all the waiting-places, 
Wandering from the doors of the waiting-room 
In the dim gloom. 
These are the women of Flanders.
They await the lost. 
They await the lost that shall never leave the dock; 
They await the lost that shall never again come by the train 
To the embraces of all these women with dead faces; 
They await the lost who lie dead in trench and barrier and foss, 
In the dark of the night. 
This is Charing Cross; it is past one of the clock; 
There is very little light. 

There is so much pain. 


L’Envoi 
And it was for this that they endured this gloom; 
This October like November, 
That August like a hundred thousand hours, 
And that September, 
A hundred thousand dragging sunlit days, 
And half October like a thousand years. . . 
Oh, poor dears!