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First World War Poems from the Front
From “How to Die,” by Siegfried Sassoon
Dark clouds are smouldering into red
While down the craters morning burns.
The dying soldier shifts his head
To watch the glory that returns;
He lifts his fingers toward the skies
Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,
And on his lips a whispered name.
The poems in this anthology—all written by poets who served on the front line—draw readers into the horrors of life in the trenches, documenting events as they unfolded in excruciating detail and creating a body of work so vivid that it continues to haunt us one hundred years later.
With First World War Poems from the Front, Paul O’Prey offers an in-depth exploration of the Great War poets, including powerful poems by Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, and Julian Grenfell, as well as two World War I nurses: Vera Brittain and Mary Borden. The poems are accompanied by a brief and accessible introduction and short biographical profiles that set them in context for readers new to the works.
Dark clouds are smouldering into red
While down the craters morning burns.
The dying soldier shifts his head
To watch the glory that returns;
He lifts his fingers toward the skies
Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,
And on his lips a whispered name.
The poems in this anthology—all written by poets who served on the front line—draw readers into the horrors of life in the trenches, documenting events as they unfolded in excruciating detail and creating a body of work so vivid that it continues to haunt us one hundred years later.
With First World War Poems from the Front, Paul O’Prey offers an in-depth exploration of the Great War poets, including powerful poems by Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, and Julian Grenfell, as well as two World War I nurses: Vera Brittain and Mary Borden. The poems are accompanied by a brief and accessible introduction and short biographical profiles that set them in context for readers new to the works.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published August 15, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 7, 2021
A well put-together collection of very powerful poems.
October 12, 2024
'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'
'and life grow dark around you, through your pain
you'll learn the meaning of your mercy then'
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'
'and life grow dark around you, through your pain
you'll learn the meaning of your mercy then'
February 27, 2025
Introduction;
"Perhaps the first, rather paradoxical, thing to say about war poetry, is that no matter how much we might admire it, or how deeply it might affect us, we must surely wish it had not been written. The price of becoming a war poet was intolerably high. At the least, it meant physical or mental trauma; for many, it meant violent death. It is hard to exaggerate the horror to which these young poets bore witness." [...] "
Reading this introduction I was still unaware of how deeply moving, disturbing and horrifying these poems from the front of ww1 would be. I had to stop many times to take a breather. All of these poems have truth in them, which is exactly why it's so haunting.
Below are two that stuck with me the most.
Does it matter? - By Siegfried Sassoon 1886-1967
Does it matter? - Losing your legs?...
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind.
When the others come in after hunting
To 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 remembering
And turning your face to the light.
Do they matter? - those dreams from the pit?
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won't say that you're mad;
For they'll know you've fought for your country
And no one will worry a bit.
Mary Borden introduction:
She wrote of her wartime experience in The Forbidden Zone (1929)
'It was my business to know which of the wounded could wait and which could not. I had to decide for myself. There was no one to tell me. If I made any mistakes, some would die on their stretchers on the floor under my eyes who need not have died. [...] My hands could instantly tell the difference between the cold of the harsh bitter night and the stealthy cold of death.'
No, no! There is some sinister mistake - by Mary Borden 1886-1968
No, no! There is some sinister mistake.
You cannot love me now. I am no more
A thing to touch, a pleasant thing to take
Into one's arms. How can a man adore
A woman with black blood upon her face,
A cap of horror on her pallid head,
Mirrors of madness in the sunken place
Of eyes; hands dripping with the slimy dead?
Go. Cover close your proud untainted brow.
Go quickly. Leave me to the hungry lust
Of monstrous pain. I am his mistress now -
These are the frantic beds of his delight -
Here I succumb to him, anew, each night.
"Perhaps the first, rather paradoxical, thing to say about war poetry, is that no matter how much we might admire it, or how deeply it might affect us, we must surely wish it had not been written. The price of becoming a war poet was intolerably high. At the least, it meant physical or mental trauma; for many, it meant violent death. It is hard to exaggerate the horror to which these young poets bore witness." [...] "
Reading this introduction I was still unaware of how deeply moving, disturbing and horrifying these poems from the front of ww1 would be. I had to stop many times to take a breather. All of these poems have truth in them, which is exactly why it's so haunting.
Below are two that stuck with me the most.
Does it matter? - By Siegfried Sassoon 1886-1967
Does it matter? - Losing your legs?...
For people will always be kind,
And you need not show that you mind.
When the others come in after hunting
To 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 remembering
And turning your face to the light.
Do they matter? - those dreams from the pit?
You can drink and forget and be glad,
And people won't say that you're mad;
For they'll know you've fought for your country
And no one will worry a bit.
Mary Borden introduction:
She wrote of her wartime experience in The Forbidden Zone (1929)
'It was my business to know which of the wounded could wait and which could not. I had to decide for myself. There was no one to tell me. If I made any mistakes, some would die on their stretchers on the floor under my eyes who need not have died. [...] My hands could instantly tell the difference between the cold of the harsh bitter night and the stealthy cold of death.'
No, no! There is some sinister mistake - by Mary Borden 1886-1968
No, no! There is some sinister mistake.
You cannot love me now. I am no more
A thing to touch, a pleasant thing to take
Into one's arms. How can a man adore
A woman with black blood upon her face,
A cap of horror on her pallid head,
Mirrors of madness in the sunken place
Of eyes; hands dripping with the slimy dead?
Go. Cover close your proud untainted brow.
Go quickly. Leave me to the hungry lust
Of monstrous pain. I am his mistress now -
These are the frantic beds of his delight -
Here I succumb to him, anew, each night.
March 31, 2025
War stories and poems are romanticised by naive idiots and politicians — those who experienced the horrors speak a different tale.
For some, patriotism is politics, while others believe it is an inherent duty. A minor segment who lived in the muddy trenches or hospital or worked as carriers, it seemed all about survival and existential struggle. Those were the war poets. In their poems, we find the message of peace, bonding, homesickness and compassion. They lament the lost innocence and goodness of humanity.
"He was for you an ordinary man.
Some of you pitied him, prayed over his soul, worried him
with stories of Heaven and Hell.
Promised him Heaven if he would be ashamed of being
what he was,
And everlasting sorrow if he died as he had lived, an ordinary man.
You gave him Gods he could not know, and images of God;
laws he could not keep, and punishment.
You were afraid of him.
Everything about him that was his very own
Made you afraid of him.
[...]
Go back, poor ghosts. Go back into your graves.
He has no use for you, this nameless man.
Scholars, philosophers, men of God, leave this man alone.
No lamp you lit will show his soul the way;
No name restore his lost identity."
- Unidentified, Mary Borden
Paul O'Prey writes, "The war saw a tremendous flourishing of poetry on a scale not seen before or since. Thousands of people took to writing poetry, millions took to reading it. Much of this poetry has not endured, and many of the poets who dominated early anthologies are now forgotten. [...] The war poets are predominantly young men and women, finding themselves at the extreme edge of human experience, overwhelmed with feelings and emotions we can barely imagine, seeking to describe a territory in which words seem inadequate."
For Sassoon and Owen, war poetry was meant to blow the conch of anti-war poetry and the worldwide message. Out of all the First World War Front poets, only Mary Borden probably had written about the atrocities and horror of war and humankind in much graphic and literal detail; she saw the horror in both living beings and corpses.
For some, patriotism is politics, while others believe it is an inherent duty. A minor segment who lived in the muddy trenches or hospital or worked as carriers, it seemed all about survival and existential struggle. Those were the war poets. In their poems, we find the message of peace, bonding, homesickness and compassion. They lament the lost innocence and goodness of humanity.
"He was for you an ordinary man.
Some of you pitied him, prayed over his soul, worried him
with stories of Heaven and Hell.
Promised him Heaven if he would be ashamed of being
what he was,
And everlasting sorrow if he died as he had lived, an ordinary man.
You gave him Gods he could not know, and images of God;
laws he could not keep, and punishment.
You were afraid of him.
Everything about him that was his very own
Made you afraid of him.
[...]
Go back, poor ghosts. Go back into your graves.
He has no use for you, this nameless man.
Scholars, philosophers, men of God, leave this man alone.
No lamp you lit will show his soul the way;
No name restore his lost identity."
- Unidentified, Mary Borden
Paul O'Prey writes, "The war saw a tremendous flourishing of poetry on a scale not seen before or since. Thousands of people took to writing poetry, millions took to reading it. Much of this poetry has not endured, and many of the poets who dominated early anthologies are now forgotten. [...] The war poets are predominantly young men and women, finding themselves at the extreme edge of human experience, overwhelmed with feelings and emotions we can barely imagine, seeking to describe a territory in which words seem inadequate."
For Sassoon and Owen, war poetry was meant to blow the conch of anti-war poetry and the worldwide message. Out of all the First World War Front poets, only Mary Borden probably had written about the atrocities and horror of war and humankind in much graphic and literal detail; she saw the horror in both living beings and corpses.
May 29, 2019
I've been wanting to read some WWI poetry again, but there's so much, so many huge anthologies. How to choose. I saw this poppy-bound, IWM edition, at the Nat'l WWI museum in KC and couldn't resist when I saw the collection included women poets. The editor Paul O'Prey was the scholar who worked closely with Robert Graves at the end of his life. I hadn't thought of Vera Brittain as a poet. I hadn't known that Edward Thomas, whom Little Toller introduced me to in the past year, became a poet because of Robert Frost's encouragement. I hadn't known Frost spent time in England before WWI. Reading this improved yesterday's commute, which could have been a drudge after a wonderful long weekend trip.
February 6, 2022
I'm on a poetry binge, so I'm really glad I picked this one up. It took me a while to get through it, only because I wanted to pick the right moments; there are some really harrowing poems so I wanted to give them my full attention and respect.
I particularly liked the individual pages of the soldiers prefaced before their writings. It was really moving to know a little about them and how they died before reading what they had to say.
Spanning shell shock, war wounds, gassing, nursing, dreams of the peaceful countryside, and criticisms of war itself, this is a poignant and moving collection, which undoubtedly encompasses some of the saddest poems I've ever read.
I particularly liked the individual pages of the soldiers prefaced before their writings. It was really moving to know a little about them and how they died before reading what they had to say.
Spanning shell shock, war wounds, gassing, nursing, dreams of the peaceful countryside, and criticisms of war itself, this is a poignant and moving collection, which undoubtedly encompasses some of the saddest poems I've ever read.
December 31, 2023
I have already re-read parts of this anthology of WWI soldier/VAD poets... I cannot recommend it more highly. Parts of this are prosy and I have trouble connecting, but some writers (Sassoon, Studdert Kennedy, Vera Brittain, Wilfred Owen) wrote so clearly and full of the moment they were in that a single poem would be enough for the day. Haunting, insightful, and compelling.
November 26, 2017
"A song? What laughter or what song // Can this house remember? // Do flowers and butterflies belong // to a blind December?"
- Robert Graves
3.5*
- Robert Graves
3.5*
February 15, 2021
This was a well collected poetry collection that showcases a range of voices. The small biography before each poets work was a nice addition
December 8, 2022
Отличная книжка, какие люди! Но очень всех жалко, подробности в тележке.
March 23, 2023
It’s a beautiful collection of poetry. It’s heart wrenching
April 2, 2015
This collection of war poetry contains short biographies of each of the poets.
I pick this book up at random in the library and was glad I did. I found certain poems (such as ‘The Hero’) very moving / effecting – they grabbed my heart.
I pick this book up at random in the library and was glad I did. I found certain poems (such as ‘The Hero’) very moving / effecting – they grabbed my heart.
January 19, 2016
A excellent collection of poems that demand to be read out loud in order to really connect with the horrors and heartbreak they talk about.
April 24, 2017
This collection was interesting and some of the poems were incredibly well written and impactful. That being said, I think as a whole it was "a lot of the same" and sometimes even tedious. The jumble of styles also made it hard to often find the rhythm until I was halfway through a work at times. Overall a nice collection, but I did not suddenly become a lover of poetry.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews