Monthly Archives: July 2014

World War One Poems – 1914/15 – by Beatrice Helen Poole

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Here are two more poems, from Auntie Babs’ notebooks.  The more I read them, the more I realise that they are a wondferful commemoration of The Great War. 

The first “The Deathless Army” was written Sept. 1914 and the second “Spring 1915” was printed in the East Sussex News.

 

The Deathless Army

All Hail to the glorious army that’s marching silently
So silently we cannot hear their tread
With steadfast eyes, and heart and head held high
They onward march, our dear and honoured dead.

Dead, did I say, oh ye mourners, they are not dead
But live, and ever will in England’s faithful heart
O’er all the world where noble deeds are told
It shall be said “They played the Hero’s part”

Yea, Heroes and Martyrs all, for willingly they gave
Their strength and manhood for a common cause
Nobly they fought against unequal odds
Not lured by gold, nor courting man’s applause.

Now onward and upward, the vast procession goes
Till all at last shall reach the Goal of Goals
Where the great Captain reads the roll-call o’er
Of His dear army of immortal souls.

Beatrice Helen Poole, 
September 2014.

 

Spring 1915

Oh who will hear your songs sweet Spring?
Or heed you, as you gaily fling
Your garlands o’er the sleeping earth
To waken her to joyeous birth

We cannot see your beauty now
As o’er our dead we humbly bow.
We mourn the brave, the true, the young
We mourn the songs they’ve left unsung

The wondrous hopes unrealised
The life-force once so highly prized
We mourn alas in this dread hour
Our nation’s wealth, her manhood’s flower

Yet still with sweet insistent breath
You say, behold – there is no death!

Beatrice Helen Poole
Printed in the East Sussex News 5/5/15

My next post will be week commencing Monday 4th August – which of course is the 100th anniversary of the declaration of the First World War .  I shall try to post several more poems during that very special week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

World War One Poems – By Beatrice Helen Poole – The German Occupation of Belgium

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One of Auntie Babs’ poems was entitled England’s Welcome and was dated August 1914. When I read it I I didn’t understand what it was about.  The first line was “Oh little Belgian baby, your Daddy’s at the War”.  Completely ignorant of much of what went on during the First World War, I researched and found the following information which, I think, explains the content of the poem.

When World War I began, Germany invaded neutral Belgium and Luxenbourg as part of the Schlieffen Plan, in an attempt to capture Paris quickly by catching the French off-guard by invading through neutral countries. Known as The Rape of Belgium, It was this action that technically caused the British to enter the war, as they were still bound by the 1839 agreement to protect Belgium in the event of a war.  On 2nd August 1914, the German government demanded that German armies be given free passage through Belgian territory. The Belgian government refused this on 3rd August and on 4th August German troops invaded Belgium. Flanders was the main base of the British Army and it saw some of the greatest loss of life on both sides of the Western Front.  Over 200,000 refugees went to Britain, where they resettled in London and found war jobs.

Hence these two poems by Auntie Babs.

ENGLAND’S WELCOME
Oh little Belgian baby, your Daddy’s at the war
Fighting for his country’s liberty
Your mother and your sisters were made a living shield
And held before the brutal enemy.

Your pretty home’s in ashes, the country all around
Is ringing with the cry of misery.
For murder and destruction are stalking through the land
And you, sweet babe, were left to fate, and me.

Some day when you are older and you can understand
I’ll tell you all the story of your gallant little land
And proud you’ll be, my laddie, of your Nation’s bravery
Now close those wondering eyes and rest with love, and me.

August 1914.
Beatrice Helen Poole

DO YOUR PART
Do you see the vast procession
Trailing through those grievous roads
Weary, hungry, sad and foot  sore
Bowed beneath their piteous loads?

Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers
Toiling, oh so wearily
With a grim and awful patience
Down the long road to the sea

There to wait in countless thousands
For a chance to board the boats
Steamers, trawlers, raft and collier
Anything in fact that floats

For England stands across the water
Holding out a helping hand
To a scared and hunted people
Fleeing from this outraged land

And she says to all her children
“Take these strangers to your heart.
Comfort them and clothe and house them
Everyone must do his part.”

“Think what it would mean, my children
If your England were stripped bare
Of her homes, her wealth and beauty,
Everything she holds most dear.”

“If from her you had been driven
Had been tortured, slain, abused
And you asked a friend for succour
Found that succour was refused”.

“Open then your hearts, and purses
Give, my children, then give more
To this brave and stricken people
Knocking at your England’s door!”

Beatrice Helen Poole.
October 28th 1914.
Printed in East Sussex News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More from World War One Poems – Re-Discovered in a Box

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Babs used to tell me that being the youngest of 23 (I only managed to trace 21) her father Josiah would often stop her on the staircase of The Tudor House and ask “And which one are you my little one?”  She said that her older brothers and sisters said that their mother Louisa seemed to be pregnant most of the time and they thought she had her bustle on back to front. For anyone not familiar with the word bustle, it’s a sort of cushion worn by women in the late 19th century at the back, in order to expand the skirt.

So back to the poems.  Written on 10th August 1914, six days after World War One was declared, it is entitled “The Nation’s Battle Field”.

The Nation’s Battlefield
I dreamed I saw a mighty battlefield
And countless armies were assembled there
But now no more did they with vigour wield
Their deadly weapons and their brothers kill
But lay with pallid cheek and eyes a-stare
All passionless and still

I wept as I walked in that terrible place
Alone mid that prostrate host
Looking down on each pitiable form and face
I thought what the world had lost
The flower of the nations lay scattered there

Some were so youthful I could almost see
The proud mother holding upon her knee
Her beautiful boy – could see with what care
She caressed and smoothed each dear rosy limb
Oh was it for this that she cherished him?

And others grown to manhood’s pride
Behind grim features seemed to hide
The pain they suffered and had wrought
By joining in warfare they had not sought
Oh, men and martyrs, how my heart doth bleed
That for the sake of a horrible greed
So many innocent lives should be slain
Wrapping the world in red mists of pain.

For it’s not with you that the blame doth lie
Going forth like heroes, willing to die
Regardless of all human laws
But with those who hold flesh and blood so cheap
That the peaceful nations in blood they steep

Oh purblind rulers who in arrogance say
To an outraged country, that you will repay
Can you raise the dead to life and to health
And change all the ruin you’ve wrought to wealth?
But I say unto you, though you pay not here
A great retribution draweth near
For the Lord will remember your bitter boasts.
Yes, he will remember, The Lord God of Hosts.

August 10th 1914
Beatrice Helen Poole.

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On a lighter note she also wrote this charming little poem entitled “Enclosed with a Scarf”. Again it was written in 1914 but no month is given.  I do not alter any of Babs’ words, but type the poems exactly as they are written.

Enclosed with a Scarf

Dear brave soldier in the trench
Be you British, Belge or French.
Here’s a scarf that I did make
Made and loved it or your sake
For I pray the while I knit
May the wearer ne’er be hit.
Some may think the scarf too long.
Some may think the colour wrong.
But one may think it ‘just all right’
Him I’ll take me for my knight.
And I wish, oh soldier true
I could do heaps more for you
Keeping with courageous hand
The barbarians from our land.

Beatrice Helen Poole
1914.

More next time.