Alan Seeger (1888 - 1916) - American WW1 Soldier Poet

Sometimes referred to as ‘The American Rupert Brooke’, Alan Seeger was born in New York on 22nd June 1888. His family moved to Staten Island when he was a year old. Alan’s brother Charles was singer/songwriter/poet Pete Seeger’s father.

Alan attended Hackley School in New York before going on to Harvard, where he edited and
wrote for the magazine ‘Harvard Monthly’.  In 1910 following his graduation, Alan went to live in Greenwich Village to write poetry. He then went to live in Paris in France, settling in the Latin Quarter, where the artists were based.

Alan volunteered to join the French Foreign Legion on 24th August 1914 and was killed in action at Belloy-en-Santerre on the Somme on 4th July 1916. His most famous poem ‘I have a rendezvous with death’ seemed to predict his death in combat.  Alan is buried in the French National Cemetery at Lihons and was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Medaille Militaire
by the French government.

In 1923 French president Raymond Poincaré dedicated a special memorial commemorating American volunteers in the First World War, which was unveiled on 4th July 1923.  A likeness of Alan Seeger is depicted on the top of the monument - Monument aux volontaires américains morts pour la France (Monument to American volunteers who died for France). The Memorial is situated in Square Thomas-Jefferson, Place des États-Unis, Paris, 16e, France.

Lines from Alan Seeger’s poem, “Ode to the Memory of the American Volunteers Fallen for France”, are inscribed  on the sides of the Monument’s plinth.

With thanks to Historian, Writer and Poet AC Benus* for reminding me I  had not posted a photograph of the Memorial. 

"Hail, brothers, and farewell; you are twice blest, brave hearts,

Double your glory is who perished thus,
For you have died for France and vindicated us."

- Sonnet XI -

On Returning to the Front after Leave

Apart sweet women (for whom Heaven be blessed),
Comrades, you cannot think how thin and blue
Look the leftovers of mankind that rest,
Now that the cream has been skimmed off in you.
War has its horrors, but has this of good —
That its sure processes sort out and bind
Brave hearts in one intrepid brotherhood
And leave the shams and imbeciles behind.
Now turn we joyful to the great attacks,
Not only that we face in a fair field
Our valiant foe and all his deadly tools,
But also that we turn disdainful backs
On that poor world we scorn yet die to shield —
That world of cowards, hypocrites, and fools.


Alan Seeger’s Collection of poems, entitled ‘Poems’, was published in December 1916 by Charles Scribner and Sons. The collection is available as a download on Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/617/pg617-images.html

You can read the inscription on the Memorial Screens here:  https://greatwar100reads.wordpress.com/2019/05/27/monday-monuments-and-memorials-monument-aux-volontaires-americains-paris/

*AC Benus is the author of a book about German WW1 poet Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele : “The Thousandth Regiment: A Translation of and Commentary on Hans Ehrenbaum-Degele’s War Poems” by AC Benus (AC Benus, San Francisco, 2020). Along with Hans's story, the book includes original poems as well as translations.    ISBN: 978-1657220584

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1657220583

A poem written by Fred Sabine from Mystic, Connecticut, United States of America

“THE LAST DAYS OF THE WAR” by Fred Sabine from Connecticut

It was a day in cool November
When we made our last advance
Across a field of shell holes
Which is far away in France.

There was a meeting on in Paris
About What, not one of us could tell.
And it seemed as if the shell that came
Would blow us all to Hell.

There were thousands of them flying
Each with its deadly sound.
And some of our men still sleep today
Beneath the hard, cold ground.

On we went, though some had fallen
And we all were nearing death,
For the air that we were breathing
Was half poison, every breath.

The fog was heavy like a curtain
And it hid us from the foe.
Yet we went on steadily forward.
I’ll admit ‘twas very slow.

I was tired and sore and stumbling
And each step I thought I’d drop
When up from the rear a runner came
With orders for us to stop.

We stopped and sat in shell holes
And the shells were flying high.
And once in a while a machine gun
Would open and let ‘em fly.

It was three minutes to eleven
When we heard the rumor first.
And every gun was shooting fast.
It’s a wonder they didn’t burst.

We sat around and talked and cussed
And bared our souls from Heaven.
When as if by magic the gunfire stopped
And my watch just said eleven.

There were hours of watchful waiting
And hardly a man dared speak.
It seemed as if the quiet that reigned
Was nothing but a freak.

We sat and stared for hours and hours
And not a gun was fired.
And then the real truth came to us
The German had grown tired.

Tired of War, which they themselves
Had brought on peaceful nations
And fought to kill and slaughter and spoil
As it seemed for recreation.

Night came as we sat and waited
And the air was very cold.
So we built a fire and sat around
As in War of which our Grandad told.

Our fire seemed a signal to Celebrate
And the boche then followed suit.
And thousands of flares then lit up the sky
Like they do when the big guns shoot.

This went on till daylight came
And the men were very tired,
But they picked up their guns
Like the men that they are
And by the prospects of peace inspired.
We hiked for miles over shell-scarred road
And finally got to the rear
Where we dropped like a bunch of men half dead
Without a word or a cheer.

After that we hiked for days
With very little rest.
But now that we’re here with our work well done
We’re glad that we did our best.

By Fred Sabine, East Haven, CTCompany D 103 Machine Gun Battalion


Featured by kind permission of Sandy Smith in memory of Harold E. Burwell and Fred Sabine.  Sandy says:

“Harold Burwell. In 1917 at age21, he was a handsome young man, engaged to be married, and
his dream was to own and operate a tool-and-die factory. Hebecame a member of the National Guard, 26th Division, shortly after America declared war on Germany in 1917, and Harold’s 103rd Machine Gun Battalion was called overseas for combat operations.

Several years ago I found Uncle Harold’s WWI diary (now at the WWI National Museum). He wrote daily about the weather, training for combat, and patriotic parades. These entries ended abruptly when his battalion fought in some of the war’s most fierce battles.

This is the story of but just one American soldier, someone who sacrificed his life so that you and Ican continue experiencing the joys of all our freedoms. I would love to share something about Uncle Harold. He made such a great sacrifice for his country, and it ruined his life. So many others have done the same. He's just one of many.

I found the following handwritten poem in the diary; it was the second-to-last entry. The writer of the poem was Fred Sabine, a combat soldier friend of my uncle, from East Haven, CT. They were in Co. D, 103 Machine Gun Battalion, and fought in many, many heavy battles until the day World War I ended on 11th November 11, 1918.

Harold’s last entry in his diary is on January 31, 1919. He and his battalion were heading to the American Embarkation Center in France to go home to America. There was a terrible train
wreck: eight more of Harold’s comrades were killed and 16 seriously injured. He listed all their names, as he knew them well.

My brother and I guesstimate that it took about a year for Harold to “shut down”. . . .to go into a shell. My grandmother always said it was because he was gassed. We now know, in all probability, that it was post-traumatic stress syndrome.

When Uncle Harold came home, all seemed fine for a time. Harold was an outgoing, handsome man, engaged to be married, and had dreams of finishing his education and opening up a tool and die factory. But then, my family said, he became wild and out of control.... restless; went to Florida; broke off  his engagement and there was no tool-and-die factory. He returned to Connecticut.  Over the years my great-grandparents died, as well as his sister and brother who took care of him. After that, my father and my two aunts checked in on him every day with food, etc.

The last time I saw Uncle Harold was when I was 5 years oldat my great-grandfather’s farm one Thanksgiving Day. My brother, my three cousins and I were told never to bother Uncle Harold. I remember the long dining room table with all of us gathered around it. Uncle Harold was sitting at the kitchen table eating with his head down, never looking up. I still remember that scene to this very day. It was the lasttime we visited the farm because we played “King of the Mountain” on their haystacks and damaged them.

Harold did emerge from his stressed-out state in his late 1970’s, and he became his old self again - intelligent, very normal, and upbeat. He died at 86 years of age. At his funeral an old woman approached my aunt and told her that Harold was the "most handsome man in all of Milford." It was his ex-fiancee!”

Mystic is a village in Groton and Stonington, Connecticut, USA.

Source: http://www.mystichistory.org/Newsletter/MRHSJanFeb17SpecialCommemorativeIssue.pdf
who have also given me permission to share this with you.

Bernard Freeman Trotter (1890-1917) – Canadian soldier poet

Canada's Rupert Brooke

Bernard was born in Toronto on 16th June 1890. His father was a Baptist Minister - The Reverend Professor Thomas Trotter - and his mother was Ellen M. Freeman Trotter. Bernard had an older brother, Reginald.   Professor Trotter was a lecturer at McMaster University in Toronto*, before becoming President of Acadia University in Nova Scotia.

Educated at Horton Collegiate Academy in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, where the family moved when he was five, Bernard went on to Woodstock College. He wrote his first known poems at the age of fourteen. As Bernard’s health was not good, his doctor advised him to spend some time in California, so he and Reginald went to California for three years where they worked on a lemon farm for a year.

After that, Bernard taught privately for a year, then at a school in California. He returned to Canada and studied at McMaster University, Toronto, where he edited the magazine “McMaster University Monthly”, in which some of his poems were published.  Bernard had a poem accepted by “Harper’s Magazine” in 1914.

Turned down for military service in the Canadian Army due to his poor health, in March 1916,
Bernard travelled to Britain to volunteer for the British Army. After training at Shorncliffe and Oxford, where he was based at Keble College, Bernard was commissioned into the Leicester Regiment.   This was a coincidence for his father was born in Leicestershire.

Posted to the Western Front in December 1916, Bernard was attached to a Pioneer Battalion. His Commanding Officer said “Bernard was one of the coolest men I have ever seen under shell fire. Bernard was killed on 7th May 1917 and was buried in the Military Cemetery at Mazingarbe.

After his death, Bernard’s father had his son’s poems published under the title “The Canadian Rupert Brooke A Canadian Twilight and Other Poems of War and of Peace” by McLelland, Goodchild and Stewart, Toronto in 1917.

*With thanks to Steve Glover, Historian and Public Relations Executive, Barrie Legion, Ontario, for additional information re McMaster University.   The University was founded in Toronto in 1890 and moved to Hamilton in 1930.

 Bernard's collection  is available as a free down-load on www.archive.org

“An April Interlude 1917”

April snow agleam in the stubble,
Melting to brown on the new-ploughed fields,
April sunshine, and swift cloud-shadows
Racing to spy what the season yields
Over the hills and far away :
Heigh! and ho! for an April day!
Hoofs on the highroad : Ride tr-r ot!
Spring s in the wind, and war s forgot,
As we go riding through Picardy.
Up by a wood where a brown hawk hovers,
Down through a village with white-washed walls,
A wooden bridge and a mill-wheel turning,
And a little stream that sports and brawls
Into the valley and far away :
Heigh! and ho! for an April day!
Children and old men stop to stare
At the clattering horsemen from Angleterre,
As we go riding through Picardy.

Source: “The Canadian Rupert Brooke A Canadian Twilight and Other Poems” with an Introduction by W.S.W. McLay (by McLelland, Goodchild and Stewart, Toronto, 1917).

Bernard is also remembered here https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/memorials/canadian-virtual-war-memorial/detail/181233?Bernard%20Freeman%20Trotter

Gerald Siordet, MC (1885 - 1917) – British Poet, Artist, Critic and Art Teacher

Portrait of Gerald Siordet by Glyn Philpot

WW1 soldier poet featured in the 2017 exhibition 'Arras, Messines, Passchendaele & More, 1917', Gerald Caldwell Siordet was born on 13th June 1885 in Le Havre, France.  His parents were George Crosbie Siordet and his wife, Mary Beatrice Siordet, nee Caldwell. The Siordet family were merchants of Huguenot origin from Switzerland and they moved to Britain during the 18th Century.

Educated at Clifton College, Bristol and Balliol College, Oxford, Gerald went on to work as a temporary cataloguer in the Architecture and Sculpture Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Gerald met the artist Brian Hatton while they were at Oxford University – Brian was at Trinity College.  They joined forces and set up a studio together in London in 1912 - The Bronze Door studio in South Kensington. As a freelance writer of literary reviews, Gerald found work with the Folio Society, and the Medici Society,

When war broke out, Gerald joined the Rifle Brigade and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant.   Posted to the Western Front, Gerald was wounded during the Somme Offensive in 1916 and was awarded a Military Cross for conspicious bravery in taking over command when his Commanding Officer was killed.

Brian Hatton enlisted in September 1914 as a Tooper with the 1/1 Worcestershire Yeomanry, a cavalry regiment. He was killed on 23rd April 1916 during the Battle of Katia, which took place about 25 miles east of the Suez Canal. Fifty Royal Engineers, together with a detachment of The Queen’s Own Worcestershire Hussars, which was sent to guard them, were sinking a well when they were attacked by more than two thousand Turkish infantry troops.  At the time of his death, Brian was a Second Lieutenant.

Brian Hatton WW1

Gerald was in France when he heard the news of his friend’s death. He wrote to his cousin Val Burkhardt to ask for information, since Burkhardt was then serving in Egypt.  Captain Burkhardt replied on 27th September 1916, stating that he was having a better memorial made than the few sticks and the bottom of a biscuit tin bearing an illegible inscription that he had found.  A footnote to that letter stated that after the war the Worcester Yeomen were reburied in Kantara War Memorial Cemetery in Egypt. Brian’s Grave Reference is A. 9.

Gerald Siordet in uniform

In January 1917, Gerald was posted to Mesopotamia and was attached to the King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster), 6th Battalion. He was killed on 9th February 1917, leading his men in an attack on a Turkish position near Kut-al-Amara. His body was never recovered. Gerald has no known grave but is commemorated on the Basra Memorial in Iraq.  His name is inscribed in the Chapel Passage, West Wall in Balliol College, Oxford.

After his death, Gerald’s sister, Vera Siordet, asked painter Glyn Philpot to help her publish a volume of her brother’s poetry and drawings and “Selected Poems and Drawings” was published in 1918.  Gerald had poems included in four WW1 poetry anthologies.

"To the Dead"

Once in the days that may not come again
The sun has shone for us on English fields,
Since we have marked the years with thanksgiving,
Nor been ungrateful for the loveliness
Which is our England, then tho’ we walk no more
The woods together, lie in the grass no more.
For us the long grass blows, the woods are green,
For us the valleys smile, the streams are bright,
For us the kind sun still is comfortable
And the birds sing; and since your feet and mine
Have trod the lanes together, climbed the hills,
Then in the lanes and on the little hills
Our feet are beautiful forevermore.
And you — O if I call you, you will come
Most loved, most lovely faces of my friends
Who are so safely housed within my heart.
So parcel of this blessed spirit land
Which is my own heart’s England, so possest
Of all its ways to walk familiarly
And be at home, that I can count on you,
Loving you so, being loved, to wait for me,
So may I turn me in and by some sweet
Remembered pathway find you once again.
Then we can walk together, I with you.
Or you, or you, along some quiet road.
And talk the foolish, old, forgivable talk.
And laugh together; you will turn your head,
Look as you used to look, speak as you spoke,
My friend to me, and I your friend to you.
Only when at the last, by some cross-road.
Our longer shadows, falling on the grass,
Turn us back homeward, and the setting sun
Shines like a golden glory round your head.
There will be something sudden and strange in you.
Then you will lean and look into my eyes.
And I shall see the bright wound at your side.
And feel the new blood flowing to my heart.
Your blood, beloved, flowing to my heart,
And I shall hear you speaking in my ear—
O not the old, forgivable, foolish talk.
But flames and exaltations, and desires.
But hopes, and comprehensions, and resolves,
But holy, incommunicable things
That like immortal birds sing in my breast.
And springing from a fire of sacrifice.
Beat with bright wings about the throne of God.

 Shown below are two of his drawings from the collection held at Balliol College:

By kind permission of Gerald Siordet’s Great-Nephew, James Ritchie.

Portrait of Gerald Siordet by Glyn Warren Philpot RA (5 October 1884 – 16 December 1937)

Sources:  Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978)
Siegfried Sassoon “Siegfried’s Journey 1916 – 1920” (Faber & Faber, London, 1945)

http://oconline.co.uk/uk/cliftoncollege/uploads/files/75027_Clifton_GreatWar_FINAL.pdf

https://www.thebigwindow.co.uk/works/a-poignant-memoir/

https://balliollibrary.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/balliol-writers-of-the-first-world-war/

"Futility" - poems by Wilfred Owen and Cecil Roberts

Both Wilfred Owen and Cecil Roberts wrote a poem entitled “Futility" during the First World War.  I think it is worth comparing the poems:

"Futility" by Cecil Roberts (1892 - 1976)

They send me, Charles, long letters on your death,
Full of fair phrases culled from poetry
That do not blind me – let them save their breath;
The nectared lies of immortality,
The sounding rhetoric, the pompous phrase,
The talk of ‘supreme sacrifice’, the ‘great
Reward’ – what are these ‘gainst your withered days,
Your dear lost face, the squalor of your fate?
That you were brave, I know, but still you clung
To life that meant so much;  they say you cried
In that last hour, feeling you were so young,
And desperately fought for life, and died.
These letters, Charles, they mock me with their lies,
Their borrowes phrases that blittle life
And love and laughter – I can see your eyes
As once they glowed, your body like a knife
Tempered and flashing in a summer sea,
Or hear your voice enraptured over books.
Or in the bathroom singing merrily
At early morn, and days in river nooks
And tennis sets – these memories all seem
Like ghosts that haunt your room now you are gone,
And make me think your end is but a dream,
How can it be the end – at twenty-one?
But when I read these letters then I know
You will not come again, nor does their praise
Lighten the heaviness of this great blow:
I cannot kiss your brow, nor see the place
Where they have left you;   as they write of ‘fame’,
Your ‘splendid gift’, my only thought is this –
What will they care ten years hence for your n ame,
Who cares a damn who died at Salamis?

The Battle of Salamis was a naval battle fought by the Greeks and Persians in 480 BC.

“The Years of Promise 1908  - 1919” by Cecil Roberts (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1968)

"Futility" by Wilfred Owen (1893 - 1918)

Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields half-sown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke once the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57283/futility-56d23aa2d4b57

"Futility" Statue, Hamilton Square, Birkenhead, Wirral, UK Photo: P..Breeze

A statue entitled "Futility" commemorating the 88 pupils of the Birkenhead Institute school who lost their lives in the First World War was unveiled recently in Hamilton Square, Birkenhead, Wirral, UK.  Cast in bronze at a Liverpool Foundry by sculptor, Jim Whelan, the statue represents an exhausted World War One solider after a gas attack.  It was produced using a sketch drawn by a former pupil of the Birkenhead Institute who went on to become an art master at the school.  His name was Dave (D.S.W.) Jones and he drew the soldier to illustrate Wilfred Owen’s poem “Futlity” specially for Jeff Walsh’s book “A Tribute to Wilfred Owen”. Wilfred was a pupil at the B.I. from 1900 – 1907. 

The statue was unveiled on the 100th anniversary of the death of Wilfred Owen on Sunday, 4th November 2018.   The Duke and Duchess of Sussex (Prince Harry and his lovely wife Meghan) unveiled a plaque beside the statue on 14th January 2019.

Thomas Hardy, OM (1840 – 1928) – British writer and poet

Portrait of Thomas Hardy in 1893 by
Scottish artist William Strang, RA (1859 - 1921)

Thomas was born on 2nd June 1840 in Higher Bockhampton (then Upper Bockhampton), a village in the parish of Stinsford to the east of Dorchester, in the County of Dorset, UK. His parents were Thomas Hardy (1811–1892), a stonemason and local builder, and his wife, Jemima Hardy, née Hand (1813–1904).

Educated initially at home by his mother, Thomas started school at Bockhamptom at the age of eight. He then attended Mr. Last's Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester. When Thomas left school, he was apprenticed to local architect James Hicks.

In 1902, Thomas went to London to study at King’s College. He won prizes from Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association. In 1862, Thomas joined Arthur Blomfield's practice as assistant architect and worked with Blomfield on All Saints' parish church in Windsor, Berkshire from 1862 – 1864.

Thomas married Emma Gifford in Kensington, London in the autumn of 1874. In 1885, the couple moved into a house called ‘Max Gate’, on the outskirts of Dorchester. It was designed by Thomas for his own use and built by his brother and Thomas lived there until his death in 1928. In 1940 “Max Gate” was bequeathed to the National Trust by Thomas's sister and is now open to the public. 

After Emma’s death in 1912, Thomas married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale.

Although perhaps better remembered now for his novels, Thomas wrote poetry and war poems during the Boer Wars and The First World War, including "Drummer Hodge", "In Time of 'The Breaking of Nations'", and "The Man He Killed". He wrote "The Dynasts" as "an epic-drama of the war with Napoleon, in three parts, nineteen acts and one hundred and thirty scenes", which were published in 1904, 1906 and 1908.

When the First World War broke out in August 1914, Thomas was appalled, writing: "… the world, having like a spider climbed to a certain height, seems slipping back to what it was long ago". Nevertheless, though in his mid-seventies, he did what he could to assist the war effort. "Men who March Away" was published in September 1914 and ‘A Call to National Service’ was published in March 1917. Poems by Thomas Hardy were included in 39 First World War Anthologies.

Thomas’s work influenced on other war poets such as Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon.

Thomas died at his home ‘Max Gate’ on 11th January 1928.

The Order of Merit (French: Ordre du Mérite) is an order of merit recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by King Edward VII, admission into the order remains the personal gift of the reigning Sovereign.

"Men Who March Away"

What of the faith and fire within us
Men who march away
Ere the barn-cocks say
Night is growing gray,
Leaving all that here can win us;
What of the faith and fire within us
Men who march away?

Is it a purblind prank, O think you,
Friend with the musing eye,
Who watch us stepping by
With doubt and dolorous sigh?
Can much pondering so hoodwink you!
Is it a purblind prank, O think you,
Friend with the musing eye?

Nay. We well see what we are doing,
Though some may not see—
Dalliers as they be—
England's need are we;
Her distress would leave us rueing:
Nay. We well see what we are doing,
Though some may not see!

In our heart of hearts believing
Victory crowns the just,
And that braggarts must
Surely bite the dust,
Press we to the field ungrieving,
In our heart of hearts believing
Victory crowns the just.

Hence the faith and fire within us
Men who march away
Ere the barn-cocks say
Night is growing gray,
Leaving all that here can win us;
Hence the faith and fire within us
Men who march away.

Source: Catherine W. Reilly "English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography" (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) pp. 158 – 160, http://www.warpoets.org/conflicts/great-war/thomas-hardy-1840-1928/ and Wikipedia

Harry Willoughby Weaving (1885–1976) - British soldier poet, served in the Royal Irish Rifles in WW1

Harry was born on 6th June 1885 in Wolvercote, Oxfordshire, UK.  His parents were Harry Walter Weaving, a brewer and farmer, of Pewet House, Abingdon, Berkshire, and his wife, Beatrice Anne Weaving.  Harry’s siblings were: Beatrice Ethel, b. 1885, John Edmund, b.1887, Reginald James, b. 1889, Dorothy Mary, b. 1895 and Lionel Armitage., b. 1897.

Harry was educated at Abingdon School (1898 –1905), where he was awarded the Meredith prize for Greek and Latin in his final year. Harry then went up to study at Pembroke College, Oxford University.

After University and helping his father on the farm, Harry became a schoolmaster and worked at Rockport School in Craigavad, County Down, Ireland.   His first poetry collection was published in 1913.

During the First World War, Harry was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant into The  Royal Irish Rifles and wrote poetry while he was in the trenches – ‘Between the Trenches’ and ‘Warrior Months’.  He also wrote the third verse of the School hymn.  Harry was wounded in 1915, while serving on the Western Front.

After the war, Harry returned to Rockport School in 1919, leaving to co-found Elm Park School in County Armagh, Ireland, in 1920.

 Harry left Ireland in 1954 to return to Abingdon-on-Thames, where he died on 16th  February 1976.  He was buried in St. Peter’s Churchyard Cemetery, Wootton Village, Boars Hill, Oxfordshire

A blue plaque in Harry’s memory was unveiled on 24th November 2014 at Rockport School, Craigavad.

"Dies Irae" (Translation from Latin - Day of Wrath)

THE land went up in fire and curdled smoke,
And the flames flickered on the flowing blood,
And all the hot air thick with thunder stood
Shaken, as oxen shake beneath a yoke
And rattle all their harness : laughter broke,
A horrid laughter, from the steaming flood,
And the unpent cry of broken womanhood
Mounted to God and hid him like a cloak.

Red mortal wrath of man, that so he dies
For indignation just, and lightly slays,
Sealing so bloodily his length of days,
Regarding not the splendid sacrifice,
Holding the gift of life below God's price
To his eternal glory and God's praise.

WlLLOUGHBY WEAVING.
IN FLANDERS.

From: "The Muse in Arms" Anthology, Edited by E.B. OSBORN  (John Murray, London, 1917)

Other poems:  The Dead (1915)
Ghosts (1915)
Progress (1917)
Dies Irae - Day of Wrath (1917)
Between the Trenches (1917)
Birds in the Trenches (1917)
Warrior Months (1917)

Harry Weaving's WW1 poetry collections were:  “The Star Fields and other poems” with an introduction by Poet Laureate Robert Bridges (Blackwell, Oxford1916), The Bubble and other poems (Blackwell, Oxford, 1917), “Heard Melodies” (Blackwell, Oxford,1918), and his poems were included inn two WW1 aanthologies.

Photo: Harry Willoughby Weaving with pupils of Elm Park, Co. Armagh  which he co-founded.

Sources:  “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” Catherine W. Reilly (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978), p. 331.

https://ulsterhistorycircle.org.uk/willoughby-weaving-blue-plaque-unveiling/

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/29278/supplement/8615/data.pdf