Women’s Poetry of World War 1 1914-1918
The women’s voices of despair, endurance and anger are quiet, and yet steadily they mount into a cumulative effect. Behind them is the backdrop of the War, always in the shadows…..
We know of the men’s agony of trench war from poets such as Wilfred Owen, Seigfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke and others but know little of the agony and anguish of the women who were left to ‘endure’, to survive, dream and wonder of how their lives and the lives of their children would be affected.
The poetry available to you in this short list alone will tell you of the Brides that never were, their hearts breaking for the men they loved and lost. Also a secondary grief for the millions of young lives lost during this 4 year period is evident too:
To those who sit today with their great Dead, hands in their hands
eyes in their eyes
At one with Love, at one with Grief: blind to the scattered things and
changing skies;
Charlotte Mew’s poem ‘May 1915’
Also Margaret Postgate Cole’s poem ‘The Falling Leaves’ a beautiful lament for the wholesale sacrifice of youth.
Today, as I rode by,
I saw the brown leaves dropping from their tree
In a still afternoon,
When no wind whirled them whistling to the sky,
But thickly, silently,
They fell, like snowflakes wiping out the noon;
And wandered slowly thence
For thinking of a gallant multitude
Which now all withering lay,
Slain by no wind of age or pestilence,
But in their beauty strewed
Like snowflakes falling on the Flemish clay.
Here too is a perspective from the Women who were caring for the injured soldiers as Nurses and as Volunteers in the V.A.D. (Voluntary Aid Detachment). ‘Vera Brittain’ wrote to her dead fiance` in ‘Perhaps’ that hopefully one day her world would return to normal but she doubted very much as her heart was truly broken and that would be one joy she would never know. At the time of his death in 1916 Vera was caring for other soldiers repatriated to London’s General Hospital:
But, though kind Time may many joys renew,
There is one greatest joy I shall not know
Again, because my heart for loss of You
Was broken, long ago.
February 1916
The poignant poem last on the list: To Tony {Aged 3} by Marjorie Wilson reflects what many Mothers were left to tell their children, that there Fathers had been killed whilst fighting for their peace.
Here you will find poems about Love, Pride, Praise, Wounded, Dying, Sentiment, Patriotism, Romance, Imagination, Heroism, Folly, Religion, Duty, Excitement, Home, Dreams, Pain, Horror and Sacrifice.
All written by Women who, in some way were all touched by the events of World War 1
With Respect,
Oldpoetry Team
Charlotte Mew ‘May 1915’
oldpoetry.com/opoem/61807
Vera Brittain ‘Perhaps’
Marian Allen ‘The Wind on the Downs’
Madeline Ida Bedford ‘Munition Wages’
Sybil Bristowe ‘Over the Top’
May Wedderburn Cannan ‘ Lamplight’
Margaret Postgate Cole ‘The Falling Leaves’
Mary Gabrielle Collins ‘Women at Munition Making’
Alice Corbin ‘Fallen’
Eva Dobell ‘Pluck’
Eleanor Farjeon ‘Now That You Too"
Winifred Mary Letts ‘To a Soldier in Hospital’
oldpoetry.com/opoem/37135
Amy Lowell ‘From one who Stays’
Eileen Newton ‘Last Leave’
Jessie Pope ‘War Girls’
Cicely Fox Smith ‘The Convalescent’
Muriel Stuart ‘Forgotten Dead, I Salute you’
Katharine Tynan ‘Joining the Colours’
Alberta Vickridge "In a V.A.D. Pantry’
Marjorie Wilson ‘To Tony {Aged 3}’
This column ends with the words of a man - Seigfried Sassoon's 'Glory of Women' oldpoetry.com/opoem/8802
Women were forced to play an important role during this War, their lives were irrevocably altered for ever. Some of The 'Brides that never were' went on into the 20's to be successful, emancipated women in many walks of life.
Sassoon's words however seem unfair to women as it presented them either as heartless for encouraging their men or refusing to be brave if they didn't.
The literary women of this time prove undeniably that their sex were strong, capable women who survived, fought, loved and died.
We hope you might reach the same conclusion.
Regards,
Oldpoetry TeamEncouraged by the words of Catherine Reilly and Judith Kazantzis
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