My Thoughts of Men Who March Away: Poems of the First World War
A collection of poems that is a memorial to the men who wrote them.
Men Who March Away is a volume of 109 poems contributed by 34 poets. Most of them served during World War I.
A few poems are written by notable poets who did not serve in the war. Men like Rudyard Kipling, Thomas Hardy, W. B. Yeats, Walter De La Mare, and D. H. Lawrence. One woman has a poem in the volume, Charlotte Mew.
Men Who March Away is a rare book of poems that I found by chance in an antique mall in Fort Worth, TX in March.
This edition was published in 1978 by Book Club Associates and is in very good condition. I may have been one of the first people to read this book as the spine was tight when I first began to read it.
The volume of poems is divided into 7 sections.
“Visions of Glory”
“The Bitter Truth”
“No More Jokes”
“The Pity of War”
“The Wounded”
“The Dead”
“Aftermath”
A Biographical Notes section includes all of the authors and a small bio on each person.
While reading the poems I feel that I am treading on sacred ground. A testament of men who wrote poems telling what they saw and felt during that war. They have a fierce will to live but live with grim reality.
“The Wounded”
“Carry my crying spirit till it’s weaned
To do without what blood remained these wounds.”
Wilfred Owen
Most of the poems prick my heart. And I feel a tenderness towards and hold in high honor these men.
In the first section of poems, “Visions of Glory,” the men sing and march off to war. In later sections the men are battle worn. It is a fatigue that cannot be translated well to a civilian. Only a person who has served in a war understands. However, their poems draw me in to their world of chaos even in the silent, and with a weariness that cannot be defined.
“Absolution”
“The anguish of the earth absolves our eyes
Till beauty shines in all that we can see.
War is our scourge; yet war has made us wise,
And, fighting for our freedom, we are free.
Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,
And loss of things desired; all these must pass.
We are the happy legion, for we know
Time’s but a golden wind that shakes the grass.
There was an hour when we were loth to part
From life we longed to share no less than others.
Now, having claimed this heritage of heart,
What need we more, my comrades and my brothers?”
Siegfried Sassoon
I want to read this!