Henry Thomas Mackenzie Bell (1856 – 1930) - British writer, poet and literary critic, known by his pen name Mackenzie Bell

Born Henry Thomas Mackenzie Bell at 8 Falconer Square, Liverpool, UK, on 2nd March 1856, his parents were Thomas Bell, a merchant, and his wife, Margaret Mackenzie, who were from Scotland.  Henry was their youngest child. His uncle was the Scottish judge and Solicitor-General for Scotland Lord Thomas Mackenzie. Educated privately, owing to health problems, Mackenzie was due to study law at Cambridge University but instead went to study in Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Madeira.

Mackenzie had articles, poems and letters published in various magazines - The Fortnightly Review, The Pall Mall Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, The Athenaeum, The Speaker, The Literary World, Temple Bar, The Lady's Realm, Black and White and The Academy. He also wrote articles for the Dictionary of National Biography, The Poets and the Poetry of the Century and the Savage Club Papers.

Mackenzie died at his home in Orme Square, Bayswater, London on 13th December 1930.

Mackenzie’s WW1 poetry collections were “Poetical Pictures of the Great War Suitable for Recitation” Series 1-4 - 1915 – 1918 (The Kingsgate Press, London, 1915), “Selected Poems” (Harrap, 1921) and had poems published in four WW1 anthologies.

“The Wise Horse” 

(A True Story of 1914.) 

ERE the trench warfare is begun, 

And men change post ere rise of sun, 

A troop of our best cavalry 

Are called to charge the enemy. 

Onward ! with faces all aglow, 

With martial ardour, now they go, 

No man in bearing seems to err. 

No gallant steed deserves the spur. 

One moment sees their proud advance, 

With whirling sword or glittering lance, — 

The next beholds a bursting shell 

Fall in their midst — a bolt of Hell. 

A soldier, wounded nigh to death. 

Drops slowly, panting now for breath. 

Seeing him fall, his faithful horse 

With bent neck, looks, then checks his course. 

Once more he looks, looks yet again, 

Sure is it now, he knows the pain, — 

Then, by kind instinct gentle made. 

He bends, and seeks to render aid. 

The man's torn raiment holding fast, 

He lifts him up ; and gallops past 

All danger : then, and not till then. 

Amid a picket of our men 

From his kind mouth he loosed his load. 

And softly neighed for help, nor strode 

Away although that help had come. 

Later, amid the gathering hum 

Of friendly tones, and friendly hands. 

He looks ; he knows ; he understands ; 

And takes his sugar quietly. 

While men say, for his bravery. 

Now he deserves the famed V.C. 

MACKENZIE BELL.

From “A book of poems for the Blue Cross Fund (to help horses in war time) President, Lady Smith-Dorrien by Blue Cross Fund, London” (Jarrolds, London, 1917)

Sources:  Find my Past, Wikipedia and 

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World Wr: A Bibliography” (St Martin’s Press, New York, 1978), p.52