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Edmund Blunden: mental scars
His World War I experiences bleed through
- First Rhymes
- In the meadow by the mill
- I›d make my ballad,
- Tunes to that would whistle shrill
- And beat the blackbird’s ringing bill.—
- But surely the innocent spring has died,
- The sultry noon has hushed the bird,
- The jingling word, the tune untried,
- All in that meadow must have died.—
- For that, the fuller speech of song
- Has charmed me,
- And lulled my lonely hours along;
- Though beauty’s truth that leads to-day
- My longing trials
- Shone then like dewdrops in my way,
- When “ Nature painted all things gay.”
- Forefathers
- Here they went with smock and crook,
- Toiled in the sun, lolled in the shade,
- Here they mudded out the brook
- And here their hatchet cleared the glade:
- Harvest-supper woke their wit,
- Huntsmen’s moon their wooings lit.
- From this church they led their brides,
- From this church themselves were led
- Shoulder-high; on these waysides
- Sat to take their beer and bread.
- Names are gone — what men they were
- These their cottages declare.
- Names are vanished, save the few
- In the old brown Bible scrawled;
- These were men of pith and thew,
- Whom the city never called;
- Scarce could read or hold a quill,
- Built the barn, the forge, the mill.
- On the green they watched their sons
- Playing till too dark to see,
- As their fathers watched them once,
- As my father once watched me;
- While the bat and beetle flew
- On the warm air webbed with dew.
- Unrecorded, unrenowned,
- Men from whom my ways begin,
- Here I know you by your ground
- But I know you not within —
- There is silence, there survives
- Not a moment of your lives.
- Like the bee that now is blown
- Honey-heavy on my hand,
- From his toppling tansy-throne
- In the green tempestuous land —
- I’m in clover now, nor know
- Who made honey long ago.
- The Poor Man’s Pig
- Already fallen plum-bloom stars the green
- And apple-boughs as knarred as old toads’ backs
- Wear their small roses ere a rose is seen;
- The building thrush watches old Job who stacks
- The bright-peeled osiers on the sunny fence,
- The pent sow grunts to hear him stumping by,
- And tries to push the bolt and scamper thence,
- But her ringed snout still keeps her to the sty.
- Then out he lets her run; away she snorts
- In bundling gallop for the cottage door,
- With hungry hubbub begging crusts and orts,
- Then like the whirlwind bumping round once more;
- And sulky as a child when her play’s done.
Edmund Blunden
Edmund Blunden (1896-1974) was an English poet and writer who wrote verse, much of which reflected his experiences during World War I. Remarkably, he survived two years on the front line without being wounded physically (although he was gassed once during his time there); however, the mental scars from his experiences bleed through even poetry that made no direct reference to the war. He was a leading member of the Georgian poets, which included fellow World War I veterans, Rupert Brooks, Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon. The Georgian Poets were defined by their inclusion in a series of anthologies published in England between 1911 and 1922, and were seen as precursors to the Modernist movement in poetry. Blunden was nominated six times for the Nobel Prize in literature.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Edmund Blunden: mental scars
His World War I experiences bleed through
Edmund Blunden: mental scars
His World War I experiences bleed through
- First Rhymes
- In the meadow by the mill
- I›d make my ballad,
- Tunes to that would whistle shrill
- And beat the blackbird’s ringing bill.—
- But surely the innocent spring has died,
- The sultry noon has hushed the bird,
- The jingling word, the tune untried,
- All in that meadow must have died.—
- For that, the fuller speech of song
- Has charmed me,
- And lulled my lonely hours along;
- Though beauty’s truth that leads to-day
- My longing trials
- Shone then like dewdrops in my way,
- When “ Nature painted all things gay.”
- Forefathers
- Here they went with smock and crook,
- Toiled in the sun, lolled in the shade,
- Here they mudded out the brook
- And here their hatchet cleared the glade:
- Harvest-supper woke their wit,
- Huntsmen’s moon their wooings lit.
- From this church they led their brides,
- From this church themselves were led
- Shoulder-high; on these waysides
- Sat to take their beer and bread.
- Names are gone — what men they were
- These their cottages declare.
- Names are vanished, save the few
- In the old brown Bible scrawled;
- These were men of pith and thew,
- Whom the city never called;
- Scarce could read or hold a quill,
- Built the barn, the forge, the mill.
- On the green they watched their sons
- Playing till too dark to see,
- As their fathers watched them once,
- As my father once watched me;
- While the bat and beetle flew
- On the warm air webbed with dew.
- Unrecorded, unrenowned,
- Men from whom my ways begin,
- Here I know you by your ground
- But I know you not within —
- There is silence, there survives
- Not a moment of your lives.
- Like the bee that now is blown
- Honey-heavy on my hand,
- From his toppling tansy-throne
- In the green tempestuous land —
- I’m in clover now, nor know
- Who made honey long ago.
- The Poor Man’s Pig
- Already fallen plum-bloom stars the green
- And apple-boughs as knarred as old toads’ backs
- Wear their small roses ere a rose is seen;
- The building thrush watches old Job who stacks
- The bright-peeled osiers on the sunny fence,
- The pent sow grunts to hear him stumping by,
- And tries to push the bolt and scamper thence,
- But her ringed snout still keeps her to the sty.
- Then out he lets her run; away she snorts
- In bundling gallop for the cottage door,
- With hungry hubbub begging crusts and orts,
- Then like the whirlwind bumping round once more;
- And sulky as a child when her play’s done.
Edmund Blunden
Edmund Blunden (1896-1974) was an English poet and writer who wrote verse, much of which reflected his experiences during World War I. Remarkably, he survived two years on the front line without being wounded physically (although he was gassed once during his time there); however, the mental scars from his experiences bleed through even poetry that made no direct reference to the war. He was a leading member of the Georgian poets, which included fellow World War I veterans, Rupert Brooks, Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon. The Georgian Poets were defined by their inclusion in a series of anthologies published in England between 1911 and 1922, and were seen as precursors to the Modernist movement in poetry. Blunden was nominated six times for the Nobel Prize in literature.
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