World War One British Poets: Brooke, Owen, Sassoon, Rosenberg and Others

by Candace Ward (Editor)

Ironically, the horrors of World War One produced a splendid flowering of British verse as young poets, many of them combatants, confronted their own morality, the death of dear friends, the loss of innocence, the failure of civilization, and the madness of war itself.
This volume contains a rich selection of poems from that time by Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, and others known especially for their war poetry — as well as poems by such major poets as Robert Graves, Thomas Hardy, A. E. Housman, Robert Bridges, and Rudyard Kipling.
Included among a wealth of memorable verses are Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier," Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for Doomed Youth," "In the Pink" by Siegfried Sassoon, "In Flanders Fields" by Lieut. Col. McCrae, Robert Bridges' "To the United States of America," Thomas Hardy's "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations,'" Robert Graves’s “A Dead Boche,” as well as works by Walter de la Mare, May Wedderburn Cannan, Ivor Gurney, Alice Meynell, and Edward Thomas.
Moving and powerful, this carefully chosen collection offers today's readers an excellent overview of the broad range of verse produced as poets responded to the carnage on the fields of Belgium and France.

Genres: Poetry, History, World War I, War, Literature, British Literature, Anthologies

71 pages, Paperback

First published April 22, 1997

Reviews

[ALLEN · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the brightest British generation marched off to World War One, many did not return. Paul Fussell's award-winning 1975 literary-social-military history, The Great War and Modern Memory, helped stoke interest in budding poets like Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon (who survived). This good little (80 pp.) budget anthology hits the high spots.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

WWI became a war of attrition. Soldiers recognized this and opposed the war. By September 1914, the Allied and Central Powers were locked into trench warfare, and 1915-1916 were marked by years of stalemate characterized by Pyrrhic victories, including that won by the Allies in Champagne where 500 yards of ground was gained in two months at a cost of 50,000 men.

A saying among the British troops according to Candace Ward was "Went to war with Rupert Brooke, came home with Siegfried Sassoon." I have never heard that one before, so I want to check its veracity.

The Soldier
By Rupert Brooke

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In 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 suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives 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.

Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895-1915) criticized the self-important stance he saw in Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier." He was killed at the age of 20 at the Battle of Loos. He saw more actual combat than Brooke, and he experienced the horror of the first poison-gas attacks. I can't help but wonder what some of these writers might have produced if they lived.

'When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead'
by Charles Hamilton Sorley

When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto,
“Yet many a better one has died before.”
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

Tears
by Edward Thomas

It seems I have no tears left. They should have fallen--
Their ghosts, if tears have ghosts, did fall--that day
When twenty hounds streamed by me, not yet combed out
But still all equals in their rage of gladness
Upon the scent, made one, like a great dragon
In Blooming Meadow that bends towards the sun
And once bore hops: and on that other day
When I stepped out from the double-shadowed Tower
Into an April morning, stirring and sweet
And warm. Strange solitude was there and silence.
A mightier charm than any in the Tower
Possessed the courtyard. They were changing guard
Soldiers in line, young English countrymen,
Fair-haired and ruddy, in white tunics. Drums
And fifes were playing "The British Grenadiers".
The men, the music piercing that solitude
And silence, told me truths I had not dreamed
And have forgotten since their beauty passed.

John McCrae is remembered for the poem "In Flanders Fields." It became immediately popular and was used as a recruiting tool. He died in a hospital in Boulogne from pneumonia.

In Flanders Fields
by John McCrae, 1872 - 1918

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Isaac Rosenberg (1890-1918) was the child of a poor Jewish family. He enlisted but he wrote in a letter "not for patriotic reasons." And followed with, "Nothing can justify war."

Break of Day in the Trenches
by Isaac Rosenberg

The darkness crumbles away.
It is the same old druid Time as ever,
Only a live thing leaps my hand,
A queer sardonic rat,
As I pull the parapet’s poppy
To stick behind my ear.
Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew
Your cosmopolitan sympathies.
Now you have touched this English hand
You will do the same to a German
Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure
To cross the sleeping green between.
It seems you inwardly grin as you pass
Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes,
Less chanced than you for life,
Bonds to the whims of murder,
Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,
The torn fields of France.
What do you see in our eyes
At the shrieking iron and flame
Hurled through still heavens?
What quaver—what heart aghast?
Poppies whose roots are in man’s veins
Drop, and are ever dropping;
But mine in my ear is safe—
Just a little white with the dust.

Louse Hunting
by Isaac Rosenberg

Nudes—stark and glistening,
Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces
And raging limbs
Whirl over the floor one fire.
For a shirt verminously busy
Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths
Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice.
And soon the shirt was aflare
Over the candle he’d lit while we lay.

Then we all sprang up and stript
To hunt the verminous brood.
Soon like a demons’ pantomime
The place was raging.
See the silhouettes agape,
See the gibbering shadows
Mixed with the battled arms on the wall.
See gargantuan hooked fingers
Pluck in supreme flesh
To smutch supreme littleness.
See the merry limbs in hot Highland fling
Because some wizard vermin
Charmed from the quiet this revel
When our ears were half lulled
By the dark music
Blown from Sleep’s trumpet.

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) died on November 4, only a few days before the armistice was signed. That only adds poignancy to his posthumously published poems.

Arms and the Boy
By Wilfred Owen

Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade
How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood;
Blue with all malice, like a madman's flash;
And thinly drawn with famishing for flesh.

Lend him to stroke these blind, blunt bullet-leads,
Which long to nuzzle in the hearts of lads,
Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth
Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.

For his teeth seem for laughing round an apple.
There lurk no claws behind his fingers supple;
And God will grow no talons at his heels,
Nor antlers through the thickness of his curls.

Mental Cases
by Wilfred Owen

Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows,
Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish,
Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues wicked?
Stroke on stroke of pain, — but what slow panic,
Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets?
Ever from their hair and through their hand palms
Misery swelters. Surely we have perished
Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?

— These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished.
Memory fingers in their hair of murders,
Multitudinous murders they once witnessed.
Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander,
Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter.
Always they must see these things and hear them,
Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles,
Carnage incomparable and human squander
Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.

Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented
Back into their brains, because on their sense
Sunlight seems a bloodsmear; night comes blood-black;
Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh
— Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous,
Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses.
— Thus their hands are plucking at each other;
Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging;
Snatching after us who smote them, brother,
Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.

Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) was wounded in April 1917 and gassed in August 1917. He was then sent to a mental hospital. His mental health had always been precarious, but his war experiences exacerbated his condition. He suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. He was finally confined to a mental home in Gloucester in 1922. He remained there until his death in 1937. He created song cycles to the works of A. E. Housman and fellow veteran Edward Thomas. He also set the verse of John Clare, the 19th century poet who was also confined to a mental hospital, to music while he was being confined in a mental asylum.

The Target
by Ivor Gurney

I shot him, and it had to be
One of us 'Twas him or me.
'Couldn't be helped' and none can blame
Me, for you would do the same

My mother, she can't sleep for fear
Of what might be a-happening here
To me. Perhaps it might be best
To die, and set her fears at rest

For worst is worst, and worry's done.
Perhaps he was the only son. . .
Yet God keeps still, and does not say
A word of guidance anyway.

Well, if they get me, first I'll find
That boy, and tell him all my mind,
And see who felt the bullet worst,
And ask his pardon, if I durst.

All's a tangle. Here's my job.
A man might rave, or shout, or sob;
And God He takes no sort of heed.
This is a bloody mess indeed.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Been fascinated with world war one poets since..."Johnny Got His Gun" re-colored my whole world in middle school. Whenever I see a collection I snag it...this one did not disappoint simply for the inclusion of this poem I have never read before or perhaps never struck me before like now:

Rupert Brook (amazing poet)
IV. The Dead

These hearts were woven of human joys and cares,
Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth.
The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs,
And sunset, and the colours of th earth.
These had seen movement, and heard music; known
Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended;
Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone;
Touched flowers and furs and cheeks. All this is ended.

There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter
And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after,
Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance
And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white
Unbroken glory, a gathered radience,
A width, a shining peace, under the night.

[Googoogjoob · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's some pretty incredible poetry in here- by eg Owen or Sassoon. But most of it leaves me cold, I'm afraid- Brooke, Rosenberg, Gurney, Graves all make me feel little or nothing.

[Teddy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good read for those of us stuck in our Downton Abbey/ The Great War (TV) phase.

[Mary Soon Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This short book collects together poems by British poets from the World War I era, most, but not all, of the poems being war poems of one variety or another. Candace Ward's excellent selections include some of the most famous World War I poems, such as Rupert Brooke's "The Soldier" (a poem that I memorized when I was a child) and Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum est" and "Anthem for Doomed Youth" (both of which are outstanding). Yet it also includes poetry by lesser-known authors, or those that I hadn't thought of as war poets. For instance, it includes eight poems by Thomas Hardy, and closes with "Rouen," a strong poem by May Wedderburn Cannan, a Red Cross volunteer whom I had never heard of. I particularly liked the poems Ward selected by Wilfred Owen and Edward Thomas. The Thomas selections include "Adlestrop," another poem that I memorized in my childhood, and which remains one of my favorite of all poems. (It is one of the poems that has no overt connection to the war.) For me, the poetry by Wilfred Owen and Edward Thomas is sufficient to put this among the top ranks of poetry anthologies. The remaining poems are a bonus.

About my book reviews: I try to review every book I read, including those that I don't end up enjoying. The reviews are not scholarly, but just indicate my reaction as a reader, reading being my addiction. I am miserly with 5-star reviews; 4 stars means I liked a book very much; 3 stars means I liked it; 2 stars means I didn't like it (though often the 2-star books are very popular with other readers and/or are by authors whose other work I've loved).

[Aylin Houle · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compilation of poems by British Poets set during and after WW1. Some who had survived and others who hadn't. Tragically beautiful words spoken through these men and women. Some hit you more than others. Nice read with a lot of meaning.

[Sidsel Sander · Rating 5 out of 5]

En virkelig fin og bred samling.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come!

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little Dover edition provides a cross-section of WW I poetry from the excellent to the not so good. Usually I prefer an edition with notes, but this included a brief biography of each poet, and some very cursory critical remarks.

I met a new-to-me poet, Ivor Gurney, kind of a voice of the people, and refreshed my memory on most of the others in this volume. The sentiments, however expressed, remain contemporary even (almost) a hundred years later.

I especially liked Sassoon's "Blighters", "One-Legged Man", and "Repression of War Experience. Robert Graves's "To Lucasta on Going to the War for the Fourth Time" and "Goliath and David" struck very modern notes. And there is a poem of surprising power from Thomas Hardy. I can see why he stopped writing fiction: his poetry is excellent.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poems of Wilfred Owen are so emotionally overwhelming that they make up for some of the Hallmark Greeting Card poems lesser poets wrote about the war. There is a small introduction to each poet, all of which are interesting. The introduction to Mr. Owen says that, had he lived, he would have been considered as great as T.S. Elliot. Sadly, Mr. Owen was killed five days before the war ended, age 25. His war poems are so powerful that every politician who wants another war should be required to memorize Dulce Et Decorum Est and Mental Cases before voting to go to war. I was so moved that I purchased an additional book of poems by Wilfred Owen. I wish he survived the war but better yet, I wish we would figure out a way to have no more wars.

[Nick Black · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three stars for the rest of the collection and a fourth star for Owen's overwhelming efforts. This collection represents, in my opinion, the finest English poetic output between Tennyson and Eliot (and Eliot was only kinda English, more Anglo than anything).

[Cassidy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The central idea of this book is the hardships of war. In one poem it talked about him dying in war. He talked about his mom having to say goodbye to her kids due to the war. In another poem it talked about losing their friend in war. In another, it talked about just being a robot to war and losing all feeling. You can watch someone die so easily because many drop like flies. One of the authors of a poem used imagery. They really described the feeling of dying and all of the emotions they went through. Another author used pacing. Throughout the poem it was going slow while they were getting ready for war. The when war started it was so fast paced and everything just went by in a flash. I kind of liked this book. They had really good poems in them with a lot of meaning and emotion behind them. I didn’t like some of it because of how morbid some of it was. Some of them were just straight forward death and harshness. Overall the poems were interesting and different than normal.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a quick, decently accrued snapshot of British poetry during the first World War. A war of attrition, many opposed it, even the sharply patriotic Kipling, and it was shown throughout much of the prose and poetry put out during this period.

Many of the poems in this collection are sardonic, harsh, and pleading for help during a prolonged, painful, and positively stagnant war. Trench warfare at its worst, many locations only gained a few inches of battlefield during the extent of the war. Quite a few of the poets in this collection were soldiers who never made it home or were considered mentally unstable to return to normal life. The collection also includes two poets who were women, but only one poem each is provided and there's definitely a sense of detachment from the battlefield as the closest one got was a Red Cross volunteer.

Overall, a decent little collection to have for a snapshot of a horrific period in European history.

[John Reis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fine little collection of poetry by World War One British poets. Brooke and Owen died during the war as did several others. Another famous poet of the era was Siegfried Sassoon. But there are others here as well, notably Kipling, Graves, Housman, Hardy.

I especially liked “in Flanders Fields” by John McCrae. And also Edward Thomas’ “This is no Case of Petty Right or Wrong.” I did not especially like Brooke, Owen or Sassoon’s work. Although the line “And bugles calling for them from sad shires” from Owens “Anthem for Doomed Youth” is especially moving. Kipling's “For All We Have And Are” is patriotic and poignant.

Alice Meynel lost her son-in-law and of course Kipling lost his son, Jack. Beyond that it does not seem that many parents wrote of their losses.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was eye-opening in a few different ways. I am constantly seeking out art that depicts life on the front lines of WWI and WWII. This collection of poems is a trove of amazing perspectives from the British front in the fields of France. I was delighted to learn that one of my favorite war poems was written by a woman. I tend to favor male perspectives on war, because most of the atrocities and trauma thereof are endured by men, but May Wedderburn Cannan's poem 'Rouen' offers a unique and beautifully-worded perspective of a Red Cross nurse on the front lines of France. This book is a must read for fans of both WWI history and great poetry alike.

[Patricia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little gem is big-hearted and reflects the experiences of the young men who went to war. There is a short bio of each poet which reminds the reader that some of these young men did not survive the war they wrote about. By all means read the poems aloud.

I read the book as part of the 2018 anniversary of WWI, but it could be any war considering the timeless sadness that we attribute to armed conflict.

This little book should be in every collection and taken out to be read on such holidays as Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

[Samantha · Rating 3 out of 5]

my paternal grandmother gave me a book of rupert brooke's poetry years ago, which I was quite taken with. as a british citizen who has lived in the US nearly all my life, I'm very cognizant of the different impacts the two world wars had on the UK and the US. it is mindblowing to think that after this war, they did it all again one generation later. many of the poets in this volume did not survive the war, it's sobering to see the years of their deaths (1915, 1917, 1918) in the headers of their sections of poetry.

[Bob Colvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anguished pomposity

I know that most of the poets saw horrendous scenes in the war but they go out of their way to sound erudite and fashionably obscure. The poems of Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon are the most readable and prose-like,
.

[Britt Kemp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very glad I came across this since I’ve been fascinated by WWI poetry since school. It has a really excellent collection of poets although a few choices I could have done without. Overall a great primer to WWI poetry.

[Jonathan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag, as most collections are. Some of the poems are quite gripping and impactful, while others sailed right past me. But overall a fine sampling of the WWI poets--most notably the four listed in the subtitle, but with samplings from Graves, Hardy, Kipling, and others.

[Caitlin Conlon · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, read for my literature & war class. A really good collection if you're looking to get the general mood of this time period as it pertains to world war one.

[Susan Plake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent research and poignant moments that make history by and far the best part of humanity.

[Rifat Islam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Wilfred Owen's "Dulce" poem. I also read some of Sassoon.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief, but pleasant and worthwhile anthology of a very important feature in 20th-century English literature.

[arden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed a few of the poets but the rest weren't really my taste.

[Ray LaManna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the best poetry ever written in the 20th century by these poets who actually fought in World War I...they didn't just watch from the sidelines. And they were not friends of his war.

[Jill Bowman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not really a poetry person but how could I not read this collection after I finished Testament of Youth.
It really is lovely. Lovely, sad, heroic. I’m glad I already had it in the house.

[Maribeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the poems of Owen when I first was introduced to them in high school. They've only improved with time.

[Daniel Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts bleak and honest. This was good but the poetic style begins to lean toward the modern lawless type which I'm not so great a fan of. Some fantastic poets in here however.