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Comrades
Those whom I’ve known, admired, ardently friended
Lie silent there wrapp’d in a soldier’s shroud;
Death broke their dreams, their aspirations ended,
These sanguine youth, noble, brave and proud.
Slowly they bear them ‘neath the dim star light
Unto their rest – the soldiers’ cemetery:
The chaplain chants a low, brief litany;
The nightingale flings rapture on the night.
Back to their Mother Earth this night return
Unnumbered youth along the far-flung line;
But ’tis for these my eyes with feeling burn,
That Memory doth erect a fadeless shrine –
For these I’ve known, admired, ardently friended
Stood by when Death their love, their youth swift ended.
John William (Will) Streets
(1886 –1916)
Comrades
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Choice
Imperious Time, I must prefer
Thy just necessity:
Resign the silent, earlier
Beliefs grown dear to me.
The stillness left alternatives
To youth, a freedom wide
And dim as dreaming, but man lives,
And must one day decide.
There is a doom the years compel:
I must approach the goal
Decreed, where it behooves me dwell:
I must declare my soul;
Must speak and choose what stars pertain
To me ; needs must I rest
In their most intimate beams, remain
Committed and confessed.
I claim a tent of stars in place
Of heaven’s confusing dome:
A tent of stars in a dark space —
The sky must be my home.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
Choice
From: Poems 1919
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Nacht im Schützengraben
Tief will sich der Himmel neigen,
Schwer von seiner Sternenlast.
Runde Leuchtraketen steigen
Auf zu seinem Blaudamast.
Rückwärts ist mein Kopf geglitten
Auf den Sand der Schulterwehr
Und mir ist, als wär ich mitten
In dem weißen Silbermeer.
Schüsse fallen, Rufe kommen,
Meine Hand kühlt kühlen Wind,
Und ich weiß kaum, traumbenommen,
Noch, was Stern, was Augen sind.
Gerhard Moerner
(1894-1917)
Aus: „Aus dem Felde“. Gedichte.
Kugelverlag, Hamburg 1917.
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More in: *War Poetry Archive, - Archive Tombeau de la jeunesse, Archive M-N, WAR & PEACE
Shelley in the Trenches 2nd May 1916
Impressions are like winds; you feel their cool
Swift kiss upon the brow, yet know not where
They sprang to birth: so like a pool
Rippled by winds from out their forest lair
My soul was stir’d to life; its twilight fled;
There passed across its solitude a dream
That wing’d with supreme ecstasy did seem;
That gave the kiss of life to long-lost dead.
A lark trill’d in the blue: and suddenly
Upon the wings of his immortal ode
My soul rushed singing to the ether sky
And found in visions, dreams, its real abode –
I fled with Shelly, with the lark afar,
Unto the realms where the eternal are.
John William (Will) Streets
(1886 –1916)
Shelley in the Trenches 2nd May 1916
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The Beggar
Showing his ill-made frame
And mumbling of troubles many,
Along a public street,
The cripple calls for a penny.
Inviting sympathy,
By his rags and his withered arm,
He follows and frets till we argue
A penny can do him no harm.
Just now, in this intimate room,
Sagacious, clever and witty,
Exposing his hardships, a Beggar
Beckoned his friends for pity.
Ugh! By displaying his pains,
By showing his heart was ashen,
By revealing his twisted life,
He played for a glance of compassion.
Strange how I longed to laugh ;
His feebleness was funny.
I thought : ” He’s only a Beggar
And affection is golden money.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
The Beggar
From: Poems 1919
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The Gates of Utterance
There is a throng within the gates,
A pressing, diverse throng;
Without, a peaceful throng awaits,
To which I would belong.
Within the gates the varied folk
Advise discordantly;
Without, the poet-crowds convoke
To council harmony.
Within the gates are all the heights
And depths of serried powers;
But when a lyric theme invites,
I reach out-lying bowers
Where dwell the bards of quiet years ;
I join my song to theirs;
My glad, unfettered spirit hears
The melody it shares.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
The Gates of Utterance
From: Songs of the Dust, 1915
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The Breath
A trembling crest
Of smoke, the winter sky
Congeals to bloom,
To please a poet’s eye:
A slender reed
Arisen from some gold
Recess or womb
Of flame to spaces cold.
Between the twigs,
That for a nest are spun
On flight’s grey loom,
A sapphire thread may run
And so between the grey,
The woven boughs of trees,
A little plume
Of mist the poet sees :
It will suffice —
Too scant a breath to name
For him to whom
It signifies a flame.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
The Breath
From: Poems 1919
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Compensation
You never told me, never, yet I know
You hold a sadness in disguise, unseen
Behind the days and years that intervene
Since you renounced ambition long ago.
Whence comes the tender love that you bestow
To feed our loves? Behind your self serene
There burns a golden passion, how you screen
With radiant life the flame you must forego !
Then you assume our love is ample meed,
Atonement, oh ! I wonder any deed
Of ours can ease your spirit s lassitude,
Or lift your lonely heart ! Our stars elude
Your sun that made them bright your solitude.
Deprived, no boon avails to fill your need.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
Compensation
From: Songs of the Dust, 1915
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The Crowning Gift
I have had courage to accuse;
And a fine wit that could upbraid;
And a nice cunning that could bruise;
And a shrewd wisdom, unafraid
Of what weak mortals fear to lose.
I have had virtue to despise
The sophistry of pious fools;
I have had firmness to chastise;
And intellect to make me rules,
To estimate and exorcise.
I have had knowledge to be true;
My faith could obstacles remove;
But now, by failure taught anew,
I would have courage now to love,
And lay aside the strength I knew.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
The Crowning Gift
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The Fugitive
Fool, fool,
They can hear thy frighted feet,
And they poke fun at thee,
Or pity thee,
Or pity thee.
They can hear thy steps retreat,
Shuffling timidly.
Thy gait is hobbling and uncouth,
For stubborn is earth’s clay;
There was a day,
There was a day,
When from the doom of its own youth,
Thy spirit stole away.
Do they not know thy spirit’s home?
Thy spirit, glancing, glides
Beneath all tides,
Beneath all tides.
It is a coral under foam;
In the cool deep it hides.
For lo, the yielding element
Of immortality
Is like the sea,
Is like the sea.
Do they not hear, in wonderment,
The tides enfolding thee?
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
The Fugitive
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Transmission
A shell, expressed the verity
In tones more limpid than the sea,
Distilled the sea s infinity.
A mellow leaf disclosed the true
In more than sun s pellucid hue,
The sun was tinged in passing through.
A wing revealed the sky unseen,
Till motion made the air serene,
A wing a soaring life, I mean.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
Transmission
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Sibylla Schwarz
Ach, Amor, nimb dein schwäres Joch von mir
Ach, Amor, nimb dein schwäres Joch von mir,
kans müglich seyn, nimb wegk die Liebes Plagen,
dein Joch ist schwer, drümb kan ichs nicht mehr tragen,
du bist zu süß, drümb klag ich über dir.
Nimb wegk die Last, sie unterdruckt mich schier:
was sol ich doch vohn deinen Pillen sagen,
die bitter sind, und doch mir wohl behagen?
Ich steh und geh im Zweiffel für und für:
wo sol ich hin? Im fall ich bin allein
so denck ich nuhr: Ach möcht ich bey Ihr seyn!
bin ich bey Ihr, so steht mir vohr das Scheiden;
liebt sie mich dan, das ich so sehr begehr,
so ist mir doch die Süßigkeit zu schwär;
Ich will den Tod wohl für die Liebe leiden.
Sibylla Schwarz (1621 – 1638)
Gedicht: Ach, Amor, nimb dein schwäres Joch von mir
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