Arthur Glyn Prys-Jones (1888 - 1987) - Welsh

Arthur Glyn Prys-Jones was born in Denbigh in Wales in 1888.  His parents were Robert and Kate Prys-Jones. The family moved to Pontypridd when Arthur was nine years old. He was educated at Llandovery College and Jesus College Oxford and became a teacher in History and English and a schools inspector. A president in the 1970s of the (Welsh) Academi Cymraeg, he was the first Welsh poet of 20th Century who wrote in English who 'was inspired by his nationality and used it as a source of pride and inspiration'. 

 

 

A Song of the Welsh

(St. David’s Day, 1916)

By A.G. Prys-Jones

 

There is a race in an island place that rose in the morning gleam

And made its sword of an olden song, its armour cut of a dream:

And its warriors died in a stubborn pride that recked no price of tears,

 

And the eyes of a nation’s hope grew bright, like roses out of the dawn,

But ever the dark of the shadow came and the twilight fell forlorn,

For the feet of the iron legions pressed where Menai sobbed and sighed,

And the Saxons came in a roaring flame:  and Arthur swooned and died.

 

Then rose a host from out of the foam, and a tyrant out of the sea,

And harried the race of the singing sword with the hounds of Normandy,

Till the quarry turned, their arrows burned, their lances thrust and leapt

At Evesham grey in the bitter day when the soul of Montfort slept.

 

And the men of the sword went far abroad when France was a blaze of spears,

And the longbow’s dirge was a crimson surge at Crecy and Poitiers.

But over a sunless road they trod when Glendower brake his shield,

Till the song of the sword rang loud and clear in the crash of Bosworth Field.

 

Then, lo ! afar from Corsica the ravening eagles sped,

From the Midland Sea to Muscovy where the trampled snows were red.

And the song of the sword came calling wild, and Picton’s henchmen flew

From Badajos through Quatre Brax to the crown of Waterloo.

 

And now, through the plains that the nations spoil, the new-flung legions came,

Their path was a torren of broken men, their feet were a scorching flame,

But the men of the sword were linked with Gods and neither spell nor truce

Could stem the spate from the Marne’s locked gate to the red, red wrath of Loos.

 

Their sword is made of an olden song their armour out of a dream,

They have seen in the rills of a thousand hills the word of the light’ning gleam.

Their dream is the soul of man unbound from birth to eternity,

And the song of the sword is a sounding chant of the psalm of liberty.

 

And the land they love and the land they made and the place men know them by

Is a land where a tree is a singing thing and the wind is a lullaby,

Where the mists are white in the morning light as a maiden’s bridal veil,

In a home that is ever the harp of song and legend and fairy-tale.

 

From ‘Welsh Poets’ Published in 1917 by Erskine Macdonald, London, pages 53 – 55.

Source for biographical information:  http://londonwelshlife.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/poetry-1900-2000-g-prys-jones.html

Isaac Rosenberg (1890 - 1918) - British WW1 soldier poet and artist

Isaac Rosenberg was born in Bristol, UK on 25th November 1890.  He was the second of six children.  His twin brother died at birth. His parents were Barnett and Hacka (Anna) Rosenberg who were originally from Lithuania.  The family moved to Stepney in East London in 1897.   Isaac attended St. Paul’s Primary School and Baker Street Board School.   Showing an aptitude for poetry and art, in 1902 he was allowed to take lessons at the Arts and Crafts School in Stepney. 

In June 1914, suffering from chronic Bronchitis, Isaac Rosenberg went to live with his sister Mina who was married and living in Capetown, South Africa.   He wrote a poem called ‘On Receiving News of the War’.  

On his return to the UK, Isaac enlisted in the 12th Bantam Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment.  The Bantam Regiments were set up to allow men of less than the British Army’s regulation 5’ 3” height to enlist.   He transferred to the South Lancashire Regiment then the King’s Own Royal Regiment and was sent to France in June 1916.

Isaac had never enjoyed robust health and he fell ill in January 1917.  On his return to the Western Front, Isaac was transferred to the 40th Division Works Battalion.   But returning to his own Regiment he fell ill again and was treated in the 51st General Hospital in Etaples, France.  Isaac was killed at Fampoux, north of Arras in France on 1st April 1918 (Nisan 19, 5678 in the Jewish Calendar).   He is buried in Bailleul Road East Cemetery in Saint-Laurent-Blangny, in the Nord Pas de Calais area of France.

A talented artist, some of Isaac’s self-portraits now hang in the National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain.  He was commemorated on 11th November 1985 in Westminster Abbey Poets Corner.

Isaac Rosenberg Self Portrait
in Tin hat 

Self portrait in steel helmet - Ben Uri Gallery

Isaac’s WW1 poetry collections were published after his death:

‘Collected Works: Poetry, Prose, Letters, and some Drawings’ edited by Gordon Bottomley and Denys Harding, with a foreword by Siegfried Sassoon (Chatto & Windus, 1937)

‘Moses A Play’ (and Poems) (Paragon, Stepney 1916)

‘Poems’ selected by Gordon Bottemley with an introductory memoir by Laurence Binyon (Heinemann, 1922)

‘Youth (poems)’ (Narodiczky, 1915)

His poems were also featured in eleven WW1 poetry Anthologies as well as being published in the press during WW1.   Poems, such as ‘Dead Man ‘s Dump’ and ‘Break of Day in the Trenches’, have been included in every significant war anthology and have earned him a place in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.

"On Receiving News of the War" BY ISAAC ROSENBERG, (Cape Town, 1914)

Snow is a strange white word;

No ice or frost

Have asked of bud or bird

For Winter's cost.

Yet ice and frost and snow

From earth to sky

This Summer land doth know,

No man knows why.

In all men's hearts it is.

Some spirit old

Hath turned with malign kiss

Our lives to mould.

Red fangs have torn His face.

God's blood is shed.

He mourns from His lone place

His children dead.

O! ancient crimson curse!

Corrode, consume.

Give back this universe

Its pristine bloom.

The Jewish East End Celebration Society are organising a statue in memory of Isaac Rosenberg to be placed in the grounds of Birkbeck College, London:

http://www.jeecs.org.uk/

Sources: 

Jospeh Leftwich, ‘Isaac Rosenberg’ in the Supplement to the Jewish Chronicle, No. 167 of February 1936, pp. I – iii – issued free with the Jewish Chronicle of 6th March 1936

and

Catherine W. Reilly, 'English Poetry of the First World War A Bibliography' (St. Martin's Press, New York, 1978)

More forgotten poets

Many thanks to Stanley Kaye of Remembering the First World War in 2014 One Hundred Years Facebook Page.  Stanley sent me an article about WW1 soldier and poet/artist Isaac Rosenberg. 

The article mentions other poets I had not heard of –

John Rodker,

Stephen Winsten,

R.C. Trevelyan and

Joseph Leftwich – so I have a lot more research to do.

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892 - 1973) – British writer and poet

Best known for his books ‘The Hobbit’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings’, both of which were influenced by his WW1 experiences, John Ronald Ruel Tolkien was born on 3^rd January in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, South Africa.  His father, Arthur Reuel Tolkien, was the manager of a branch of a British bank.   His mother was Mabel Tolkien, nee Suffield.  He had a brother – Hilary Arthur, born in 1894.

Tolkien’s father died when he was three years old while he and his brother and mother were visiting England.  Mabel took the boys to live in a Worcestershire village near Birmingham and undertook the boys’ education herself. She converted to Catholicism and was disinherited by her family.  Their mother died when Tolkien was twelve and the boys’ care passed to Jesuit Priest, Father Francis Xavier Morgan.   Tolkien went to King Edward’s School and St. Philip’s School, Birmingham before going on to Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied Classics.  He joined the University’s Officer Training Corps and obtained a first class degree in 1915. 

Tolkien then enlisted in the Army and was commissioned as a 2^nd Lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers.   He married his sweetheart Edith Brett on 22^nd March 1916 before being sent to the Western Front.   Tolkien was based at Etaples and saw service during The Somme Offensive that began in July 1916 in Orvilles. He also took part in the raid on the Schwaben Redoubt.  

A debilitating attack of Trench Fever contracted in October 1916 meant that Tolkien was repatriated to Britain and after several bouts of the illness, he served in various camps until the end of the war.

When Edith died in 1971, Tolkien went to live in rooms at Merton College, Oxford, where he died on 2^nd September 1973.
http://greenbooks.theonering.net/guest/files/040102_02.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien http://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/jrr_tolkien_2004_9.pdf

Iolo Aneurin Williams (1890 - 1967) – Welsh Poet, Journalist, Writer and Art Historian

Born in Middlesborough, Yorkshire on 18^th June 1890, his father was the Labour Member of Parliament Aneurin Williams and his mother was Helen Elizabeth, nee Pattinson.  He had one sibling – Helen Ursula Williams.

Iolo Aneurin was educated at Rugby School before going on to Cambridge.  In 1911, the Williams family were living in Hindhead, Surrey.

During the First World War Iolo Aneurin was a Captain in the West Yorkshire Regiment and served in France and Flanders.

In 1920, he married an American – Francion Elinor Rixon from Colorado, USA and they had a son and two daughters.

Iolo Aneurin Williams died on 18^th January 1962.

His WW1 poetry collections were:

‘New Poems’ Methuen 1919

‘Poems’, Methuen 1915

And his poems were featured in seven First World War poetry Anthologies.

Sources:

http://search.findmypast.co.uk/record?id=gbm%2fmci%2f4777496

and Catherine W. Reilly ‘English Poetry of the First World War A Bibliography’ (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978)

 

Arthur St. John Adcock (1864 - 1930) - British poet, writer, journalist

Adcock used the pen-name ‘Lance-Corporal Cobber' during WW1.

Arthur St. John Adcock was born in Marylebone, London on 17^th January 1864.  He studied law and later became a Fleet Street journalist

He married Marion Louisa Taylor in Birkenhead, Wirral in 1887 and the couple had two daughters. In 1901, the family lived in Hampstead and in 1911 in Hertfordshire and in 1911 they lived in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire.

Adcock died on 9^th June 1930.

Adcock’s First World War writing includes:

In the Firing Line (1914) editor, a collection of letters written from the Front in the early days of the war before censorship - available as a down-load on Archive https://archive.org/stream/infiringlinestor00adcoiala#page/n7/mode/2up

Seeing It Through [1915]
His WW1 poetry collections were:
City Songs (Selwyn & Bloom, 1926)
Exit Homo (Selwyn & Bloom, 1921)
Songs of the World War (Palmer & Hayward, 1916)
Tod MacMammon sees his soul, and other satires for the new democracy (poems) (Swarthmore, P. 1921)
and his poems were included in three WW1 Anthologies.

Adcock also published:
Australasia Triumphant! With the Australians and New Zealanders in the Great War on Land And Sea (1916)
The Odd Volume (1917) editor, stories
For Remembrance. Soldier Poets who have Fallen in the War. With nineteen portraits (1918)
The ANZAC Pilgrim's Progress: Ballads of Australia's Army (1918) Lance-Corporal Cobber, editor (Simpkin, Marshall, 1918
The Divine Tragedy (1922)

Sources:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_St._John_Adcock and Catherine W. Reilly ‘English Poetry of the First World War A Bibliography’ (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978)

Claude Colleer Abbott (1889 - 1971) - British Poet, Editor, University Professor

Claude was born in Chelmsford, Essex in 1889, the son of George H. Abbott, a butcher, and his wife Mary, nee Neal. 

He became a schoolmaster and in 1930 lectured in English at the University of Aberdeen where, while researching the work of the Scottish philosopher James Beattie, he discovered a manuscript of James Boswell’s journal written in London 1762 – 1763, which was previously presumed to have been destroyed.

Claude wrote about and edited the work of many notable poets as well as publishing his own poetry.

During WW1 he joined the Artists’ Rifles as a Private.  His WW1 poetry collections include:

‘Collected Poems 1918 – 1958’, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1963

‘Poems’, Blackwell, 1921

‘The Sand Castle, and other poems’, Cape, 1946

‘Youth and Age (poems)’, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1918

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