Theirs not to wonder why

The first selection in this reading about WAR will be The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  It is the story of a military blunder; yet, even though those in command bungled the charge, Tennyson still manages to glorify war.  He admits that a mistake was made but leaves the details vague.  In fact, according to some accounts, two-thirds of the six hundred men who charged the Russian army at Balaklava in 1854 did not survive the battle.

Starting the reading with this poem should catch the attention of my audience though they may find it somewhat dated.  My theme is the affect of war upon the lives of solidiers and of those who remain at home.  Many of the soldiers in Tennyson's poem, which is based upon an actual historical battle, at Balakava in the Crimean War, did not return home.  Their lives were ended, not just altered.  Many of those who survived were probably affected by what we would now call Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, a normal human reaction to the horrors of war.  This disorder was not recognized in those days and Tennyson was still attempting to uphold the values of king and country.  He doesn't present the other side, the human lives that were devastated.  My other, more modern readings will present that side; by the time they were written, some poets had achieved a greater awareness of a grimmer aspect of war.

And now my reading of

The Charge of the Light Brigade


Half a league, half a league,
      Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
      Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!' he said:
Into the valley of Death
      Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
      Some one had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why, 
Their's but to do and die: 
Into the valley of Death
      Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
      Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
      Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
      All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre-stroke
      Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
      Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
      Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
      Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade ?
O the wild charge they made!
      All the world wonder'd.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
      Noble six hundred!


My next reading, War Girls by Jessie Pope, deals with a topic which may seem a lot more mundane than The Charge of the Light Brigade.  The women in the poem keep things going while the men get to go off and risk their lives.  Pope didn't glorify this at all and I would think the affect on these women would be a good one since it gave them an opportunity to get out of the house and experience a more exciting way of life, "No longer caged and penned up."

Let's allow the poem speak for itself.

War Girls

'There's the girl who clips your ticket for the train,
And the girl who speeds the lift from floor to floor,
There's the girl who does a milk-round in the rain,
And the girl who calls for orders at your door.
Strong, sensible, and fit,
They're out to show their grit,
And tackle jobs with energy and knack.
No longer caged and penned up,
They're going to keep their end up
'Til the khaki soldier boys come marching back.

There's the motor girl who drives a heavy van,
There's the butcher girl who brings your joint of meat,
There's the girl who calls 'All fares please!' like a man,
And the girl who whistles taxi's up the street.
Beneath each uniform
Beats a heart that's soft and warm,
Though of canny mother-wit they show no lack;
But a solemn statement this is,
They've no time for love and kisses
Till the khaki soldier boys come marching back.

The poem suggests that women do feel some suffering as they wait for their men to return since they know that perhaps these men never will return.  Pope glorifies this aspect of women's lives since not all women would have waited for that one special "khaki boy".

Women, like men, were trapped by forces beyond their control and their lives were changed.  War Girls was considered a pro-war poem and Dulce et Decorum Est was "a distinct response to her writing," according to OldPoetry.

My next selection is The Superfluous Woman by Vera Brittain.  War Girls is an upbeat poem which accentuates the adventurous aspects of being a woman and "doing your bit" in a time of war.  In The Superfluous Woman, Vera Brittain has chosen to deal with the sadness and isolation of a woman bereaved by war. Both the war girls and the superfluous woman are all ordinary people, whose lives are changed by forces beyond their control.

The Superfluous Woman

Ghosts crying down the vistas of the years,
Recalling words
Whose echoes long have died,
And kind moss grown
Over the sharp and blood-bespattered stones
Which cut our feet upon the ancient ways.

But who will look for my coming?

Long busy days where many meet and part;
Crowded aside
Remembered hours of hope;
And city streets
Grown dark and hot with eager multitudes
Hurrying homeward whither respite waits.

But who will seek me at nightfall?

Light fading where the chimneys cut the sky;
Footsteps that pass,
Nor tarry at my door.
And far away,
Behind the row of crosses, shadows black
Stretch out long arms before the smouldering sun.

But who will give me my children?


Here's my next reading


The Hero

- Seigfried Sassoon

'Jack fell as he'd have wished,' the mother said,
And folded up the letter that she'd read.
'The Colonel writes so nicely.' Something broke
In the tired voice that quivered to a choke.
She half looked up. 'We mothers are so proud
Of our dead soldiers.' Then her face was bowed.

Quietly the Brother Officer went out.
He'd told the poor old dear some gallant lies
That she would nourish all her days, no doubt
For while he coughed and mumbled, her weak eyes
Had shone with gentle triumph, brimmed with joy,
Because he'd been so brave, her glorious boy.

He thought how 'Jack', cold-footed, useless swine,
Had panicked down the trench that night the mine
Went up at Wicked Corner; how he'd tried
To get sent home, and how, at last, he died,
Blown to small bits. And no one seemed to care
Except that lonely woman with white hair.

The mother in The Hero is trying to make herself feel better by glorifying her son's useless death, a tradition of noble sacrifice often practiced by mothers bereaved in battle.  Jack's commanding officer supports the mother's view of things though, in his opinion, Jack has not behaved heroically at all.  Again, Jack's behaviour conforms to what a lot of us in more modern times would consider a normal reaction to horror and stupidity.

Dulce Et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! — An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, —
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

I will close with an example of the lie that Wilfrid Owen is  referring to, a lie that has become less and less sweet and proper as we move further into the 21st Century.  I won't read all of the poem.  It's one of those long, historical poems by MacCauley, much too long in my opinion.  This is his account of Horatius at the bridge.  I remember listening to this in Latin class many years ago read by our Latin teacher, an elderly lady who didn't say whether she beleived these lines or not.

And how can men die better than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of their fathers and the temples of their gods?

Ordinary men, who may or may not have believed they were fighting for a good cause.  They had no choice.

Thank you.  I hope you have enjoyed these readings.