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.

***********

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.