Charles John Beech Masefield, MC (1882 – 1917) – British Poet

Charles John Beech Masefiled was born on 15th April 1882 in Cheadle, Staffordshire.  His parents were John Richard Beech Masefield, a solicitor, and his wife, Susan Masefield, nee Blagg.  Charles was a cousin of the poet John Masefield, who served with the Red Cross in France during WW1,

Educated at Repton School before becoming an articled clerk in the family’s law firm, Charles went on to qualify as a solicitor.

In 1910, Charles married Muriel Agnes Bussell.

Commissioned into the 5th Battalion, The Prince of Wales North Staffordshire Regiment as a Second Lieutenant, Charles was posted to France in March 1915 and served during the Somme Offensive in 1916.  He was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry while leading his men during a raid at Cité sur Laurent, near Lens, France, on 14th June 1917. Wounded at Lens on 1st July 1917, Charles was taken prisoner of war by the Germans and died the following day.

Charles was buried in Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery, Souchez, France.  He is also commemorated on a family headstone in Cheadle Cemetery, Staffordshire.

The WW1 poetry collections of Charles John Beech Masefield were:

“Dislikes: some modern satired” (Fifield, 1914) and “Poems” (Blackwell, Oxford, 1919). His poems were included in three WW1 poetry anthologies.

"Sailing for Flanders"


To need any more the skies or man to importune
For us departing to-day with spirits at peace,
Now that the inner warfares, that tire men, cease
For us the chosen of God's lot, the spoilt darlings of Fortune.

Against the beasts in men let loose from their cages
We go forth with a lightened and proud heart,
We who are the men summoned to a high part,
To be known of the envious youth of unborn ages.

We have feared old Death, but now have we learned our error,
Seeing him there in the mire us so kindly await
A comrade befitting the hour of a world's fate,
And we look him full in the eyes ; we are rid of our last terror.

True that Death is an ill, but the worse ills are many;
Shame and slow rotting, cold and greasy years,
Pride in dishonour these things hold our fears;
We can play pitch and toss with our lives as a boy with a penny.

We have spent ourselves to win us a lady's favour,
But now the spending is grown to a leaping fire,
And winning for ourselves seems but a strange desire;
Her eyes -are remote as stars ; her kisses have lost their savour.

We have put life away and spurn the ways of the living;
We have broken with the old selves who gathered and got,
And are free with the freedom of men who have not;
We partake the heroic fervours of giving and again giving.

Was it only for Death we were borne of our Mothers?
Only for Death created the dear love of our wives?
Only for Death and in vain we endeavoured our lives?
Yea, life was given to be given ; March onward, my brothers!

Charles John Beech Masefield

Poems about Christmas 1915

As most of you will know, I began seriously to research the poets and poetry of the First World War in May 2012.  After a while, I became convinced that I was ‘receiving help’ because ideas, words, names and phrases come into my head from nowhere.   I often dream about the poets.  Two nights ago I awoke in the middle of the night with “Christmas 1915” going through my head.  The words remained in the cold light of day, so I began to look into poems written on or about Christmas 1915.   I am trying to find out more about the poets but if anyone can help please get in touch.

To set the scene, here is some film footage of Christmas scenes on the Western Front http://ww1lit.nsms.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/db/object/ww1/5505

Poems found so far:

“Christmas: 1915” by Percy MacKaye (1875–1956) - an American dramatist and poet.

 Now is the midnight of the nations: dark
    Even as death, beside her blood-dark seas,
    Earth, like a mother in birth agonies,
Screams in her travail, and the planets hark
Her million-throated terror. Naked, stark,
    Her torso writhes enormous, and her knees
    Shudder against the shadowed Pleiades
Wrenching the night’s imponderable arc.

Christ! What shall be delivered to the morn
    Out of these pangs, if ever indeed another
    Morn shall succeed this night, or this vast mother
Survive to know the blood-spent offspring, torn
    From her racked flesh?— What splendour from the smother?
What new-wing’d world, or mangled god still-born?

“1915 on Christmas Day” by 'Celtic Thunder'

On the Western Front the guns all died away
And lying in the mud on bags of sand
We heard a German sing from no man's land
He had a tenor voice so pure and true
The words were strange, but every note we knew
Soaring o’er the living, dead and damned
The German sang of peace from no man's land

They left their trenches and we left ours
Beneath tin hats the smiles bloomed like wild flowers
With photos, cigarettes and pots of wine
We built a soldier's truce on the front line
Their singer was a lad of 21
We begged another song before the dawn
And sitting in the mud and blood and fear
He sang again the song all longed to hear

Silent night, no cannons’ roar
A king is born of peace for evermore
All's calm, all's bright
All brothers hand in hand
In 19 and 15 in no man's land

And in the morning all the guns boomed in the rain
And we killed them and they killed us again
At night they charged; we fought them hand to hand
And I killed the boy that sang in no man's land

Silent night, no cannons’ roar
A king is born of peace for evermore
All's calm, all's bright
All brothers hand in hand
And that young soldier sings
And the song of peace still rings
Though the captains and all the kings
Built no man's land
Sleep in heavenly peace

To Sew Or Not to Sew: A Poem - Christmas 1915 by EDWARD H. DOUGLAS

With eager heart and eager hand,
We stitched and stitched, with tightening thread,
Bags, to be later filled with sand,
To shield a gallant Tommy’s head.

Hark! from the trenches rings the cry –
“Oh! help us in our deadly strife;
Provide us bags, or else we die,
For, lack of these costs many a life.”

But now from War Officialdom
Issues the order – “Cease your task.”
It fell upon us like a bomb,
And what to do, we humbly ask?

For still there floats the same refrain,
We can but feel its plaintive touch,
“Send all you can,” and then again,
Send more: we cannot have too much.”

EDWARD H. DOUGLAS. From https://godolphinww1.com/2015/09/04/to-sew-or-not-to-sew-a-poem-christmas-1915/

"The Oxen"--A Poem for Christmas 1915 by Thomas Hardy

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
     "Now hey are all on their knees,"
An elder said as we sat in a flock
     By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
     They dwelt in their strawy pen.
Nor did it occur to one of us there
     To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few believe           [Hynes gives "would weave." ]
     In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve
     "Come; see the oxen kneel

"In the lonely barton by yonder comb
      Our childhood used to know,"
I should go with him in the gloom,
     Hoping it might be so.

Transcribed directly from the London Times for 24 December 1915, page 7. Checked against The Complete Poetical Works of Thomas Hardy, ed. Samuel Hynes, (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984). II 206
http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hardy/poems/oxen.html

Walter Lightowler Wilkinson (1885 – 1917) – British poet

I have not been able to find a photograph of Walter Lightowler Wilkinson. If anyone can help, please get in touch.

Walter was born in 1885 in Bedminster, Somerset, UK. His parents were Lightowler Wilkinson, a railway goods manager, and his wife Maria.  In 1901, the family was living in Ealing. After the death of Lightowler in 1908, Walter was introduced to Mrs W. Sharpe, widow of author William Sharpe. She helped him develop his aptitude for writing poems.

Walter took up flying to try to help a health condition but was rejected by the Royal Flying Corps when he tried to join.  Instead, he joined the University and Public Schools Corps as a Private in September 1914.

Commissioned into the Princess Louise’s 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders Regiment in 1916, Walter was posted to France in January 1917.  He was killed in action during the Battle of Arras on Vimy Ridge on 9th April 1917 and was buried in Highland Cemetery, Roclincourt, Nord-pas-de-Calais, France.

Walter’s poems were featured in four WW1 poetry anthologies.

“At Last Post”

COME home!—Come home!⁠
The winds are at rest in the restful trees;
At rest are the waves of the sundown seas;
And home—they're home—
The wearied hearts and the broken lives—
At home! At ease!

B.E.F., France.

“Night in War Time”

NIGHT and night's menace: Death hath forged a dart
Of every moment's pause and stealthy pass:
Blind Terror reigns: darkly, as in a glass,
Man's wondering Soul beholds his fearful Heart,
And questions, and is shaken: and, apart,
Light Chance, the harlot-goddess, holding Mass,
Scatters her favours broadcast on the grass
As might a drunkard spill his wares in mart!


Time and sweet Order have forsaken men,
So near Eternal seems the Night's foul sway:
We ask of Life: "Has Chaos come again,
With Ruin, and Confusion, and Decay?"
Yet slowly, surely darkness dies: and then,
Out of the deep night's menace, dawns the Day!

B.E.F., France, January 25th, 1917 from “More songs by the fighting men. Soldiers poets: second series” Edited by Galloway Kyle (Erskine Macdonald, London, 1917)

An interesting discussion on The Great War Forum re ‘Southern crush’ from Walter’s poem  “Wayside Burial” – second line

“The Wayside Burial”

"THEY'RE bringing in their recent dead—their recent dead!
I see the shoulder badge: a "Southern crush."
How small he looks—(O damn that singing thrush!)
Not give foot five from boots to battered head! . . .
Give him a kindly burial, my friends,—
So much is due, when some such loyal life ends!
"For Country!" . . . Ay, and so our brave do die:
Comrade unknown, good rest to you!—Good-bye!


They're bringing their recent dead! No pomp, no show:
A dingy khaki crowd—his friends, his own.
I, too, would like—(God, how that wind does moan!)—
To be laid down by friends: it's sweetest so!
A young life, as I take it; just a lad—
(How cold it blows; and that grey sky, how sad!)—
And yet: "For Country"—so a man should die:
Comrade unknown, good rest to you!—Good-bye!


They're burying their dead!—I wonder now:
A wife?—or mother? Mother it must be—
In some trim home that fronts the English sea.
(A sea-coast country: that the badges show.)
And she?—I sense her grief, I feel her tears!
"This, then, the garnered harvest of my years!"
And he? . . . "For Country, dear, a man must die!"
Comrade unknown, good rest to you!—Good-bye!


It's reeded: he is buried! Comrade, sleep!
A wooden cross at your brave head will stand.
A cross of wood? A Calvary!—The Land
For whose sake you laid down sweet life, will keep
Watch, lad, and ward that none may bring to shame.
That Name for which you died! . . . "What's in a name"?—
England shall answer! You will hear Her cry:
"Well done, my own! my son—good rest: Good-bye!"

B.E.F., France, 4.3.17.

“The stanza you have now given makes it clear that these badges are from a battalion from a county or counties on the English Channel coast. It reads as though this is a term for the badge itself. Odd that it doesn't show up on Google (as far as I can see). But perhaps forum experts on these battalions would know...trouble is there must be such a lot of them, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, Dorset, Devon.

On the other hand the phrase could mean that the badge identifies the man as belonging to a 'Southern Crush'. I've just checked my trusty old Oxford English Dictionary (the 20-volume one with historical citations) and that gives a 1916 quotation from 'Boyd Cable', Action Front (no idea what that is, I assume a novel): 'You want to ask about someone in the old crush', where crush is stated by the OED to be understood from the context to mean 'regiment'. Also the Observer newspaper had on 12 June 1927,' The best recruiter is the man who is pleased with his 'crush' '.

EDIT These come under a sub-category of 'crush', substantive, marked slang, originally US, meaning a group or gang of persons, specifically a body of troops; a unit of a regiment.

The more I think about it, the more likely this second interpretation seems.”

https://www.greatwarforum.org/topic/200830-southern-crush-army-slang/

William Henry Littlejohn (1891 – 1917) – British poet

William was born in Islington, London in 1891.  His parents were William Littlejohn, a coach builder, and his wife, Mary Ann Littlejohn, nee Bulled.  The family live in Hammersmith, London.

William went to work as a clerk for the Civil Service and joined the Territorial Branch of the Middlesex Regiment.  By the time WW1 began, he had reached the rank of Sergeant.

William married Florence Annabel Bell in Fulham in 1915.

Promoted to the rank of Company Sergeant Major (CSM), William served in Gallipoli with his Regiment, before being posted to the Western Front.  He was killed on 10th April 1917 and was buried in Wancourt British Cemetery, France.

William’s poems were included in WW1 Anthologies “The Muse in Arms”, edited by E.B. Osborn (Murray, London, 1917) and “The Valiant Muse”, edited by F.W. Ziv (Putnam, New York, 1938).

“A Prayer”

Lord, if it be Thy will
That I enter the great shadowed valley that lies
Silent, just over the hill,
Grant they may say, 'There's a comrade that dies
Waving his hand to us still!'

Lord, if there come the end,
Let me find space and breath all the dearest I prize
Into Thy hands to commend:
Then let me go, with my boy's laughing eyes
Smiling a word to a friend.

W H Littlejohn

Alexander James Mann – Pen Name Hamish Mann (1896 – 1917) - Scottish WW1 soldier poet

“My thoughts in this small booklet lie,

The windows of my inner eye.” – H.M.

“Songs are my life; my life’s a song always,

Into my verse I pour my very soul.”  Hamish Mann 

Alexander James Mann was born in Broughty Ferry, Dundee, Forfarshire, Scotland on 5th April 1896. His parents were Alexander Mann and his wife Charlotte, and his siblings were David, Jeanie, Isobel and Alan.

Alexander was educated at Grove Academy, Broughty Ferry, where he  is remembered on the school’s war memorial, and George Watson’s College, Edinburgh, after which he worked as a journalist.  

At the start of the war, Alexander assisted at Craigleith Military Hospital, where he joint edited the hospital's magazine “The Craigleith Chronicle”, contributing some of his work. He also had poems published in other Scottish publications under the pen-name ‘Lucas Cappe’.   He also used the pen-name Hamish Mann, by which he is now mainly remembered.

Commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in July 1915, Alexander joined the 8th Battalion of the Black Watch and was posted to France in August 1916, taking part in the Somme Offensive.  During the first day of the Battle of Arras on 9th April 1917, Alexander was badly wounded by a shell. He died the following day and was buried in Aubigny Communal Cemetery Extension, 62045 Aubigny-en-Artois, Pas de Calais, France.

Alexander’s brothers also served in WW1 - Captain Allan Cowan Mann, M.M. & Bar, M.i.D. twice, Royal Army Medical Corps and Captain David Mann, Royal Army Medical Corps;  both his brothers returned home safely.

Alexander’s WW1 poetry collection “A Subaltern’s Musings” was published by his parents after his death by John Long, London in 1918 and five of his poems were included in "From the Line: Scottish War Poetry 1914 - 1945" edited by David Goldie and Roderick Watson (Association for Literary Studies, Glasgow, 2014)/

“The Shell Hole” 10 September 1916 by Hamish Mann

In the Shell Hole he lies, this German soldier of a year ago;
But he is not as then, accoutred, well, and eager for the foe
He hoped so soon, so utterly, to crush. His muddy skull
Lies near the mangled remnants of his corpse – war’s furies thus annul
The pomp and pageantry that were its own. White rigid bones
Gape through the nauseous chaos of his clothes; the cruel stones
Hold fast the letter he was wont to clasp close to his am’rous breast.
Here, ‘neath the stark, keen stars, where is no peace, no joy, nor any rest,
He lies. There, to the right, his boot, gashed by the great shell’s fiendish whim,
Retains – O horrid spectacle! – the fleshless stump that was his limb!
Vile rats and mice, and flies and lice and ghastly things that carrion know
Have made a travesty of Death of him who lived a year ago.

Sources: 

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978), p. 216 - which incorrectly calls  him Arthur James Mann

Find my Past

https://www.greatwardundee.com/entry/alexander-james-mann/

https://www.greatwardundee.com/entry/alexander-james-mann/

With thanks to John Seriot for additional information about Alexander's poems.

Photo from Alexander's collection “A Subaltern’s Musings”.

Edmond Rostand (1868 - 1918) – French poet, writer, playwright

Edmond Rostand was one of the poets featured in the Poets of 1918 Exhibition held in 2018.

Edmond Eugène Joseph Alexis Rostand was born on 1st April 1868 in Marseilles, France at No. 14 rue Monteaux, now called rue Edmond-Rostand.  His parents were Eugène Rostand and his wife, Angèle, nee Gayet.

Educated initially in Marseilles, Edmond went to Paris in 1884 to the Stanislas College, following which he enrolled to study law.


Edmond married Rosemonde Gérard, who was also a poet, on 8th April 1890 in Paris.  The couple had two sons – Maurice, born in 1891, who became a poet, and Jean, born in 1894, who became a writer and biologist.  In 1897, when Edmond was 29 years old, he published his most famous work “Cyrano de Bergerac”.  He was electected to the Académie française in 1901.

In 1915, Edmond left his wife to be with the actress Mary Marquet.

During the First World War, Edmond tried to enlist in the French Army but was rejected.  He then threw himself into helping the French soldiers (Poilus), raising funds and becoming a medical orderly in the Pays Basque area, working close to the Front several times. When the Armistice was announced, Edmond went to Paris to be among the people and there he contracted Spanish Flu.

Edmond died on 2nd December 1918.  He was buried in the Saint-Pierre Cemetery in Marseilles.

Edmond Rostand’s WW1 poetry collection was “Le Vol de la Marseilleise” (Ed. Eugene Fasquelle, Published by Librairie CHARPENTIER et FASQUELLE, Paris, 1919)

“La Cathédrale”

Ils n'ont fait que la rendre un peu plus immortelle.
L'Œuvre ne périt pas, que mutile un gredin.
Demande à Phidias et demande à Rodin
Si, devant ses morceaux, on ne dit plus : a C'est Elle! »

La Forteresse meurt quand on la démantèle.
Mais le Temple, brisé, vit plus noble; et soudain,
Les yeux, se souvenant du toit avec dédain,
Préfèrent voir le ciel dans la pierre en dentelle.

Rendons grâce — attendu qu'il nous manquait encor
D'avoir ce qu'ont les Grecs sur la colline d'or :
Le Symbole du Beau consacré par l'insulte! —

Rendons grâce aux pointeurs du stupide canon.
Puisque de leur adresse allemande il résulte
Une Honte pour eux, pour nous un Parthénon!

"The Cathedral"

All they did was make it a little more immortal
A work of art doesn’t cease to exist because it’s destroyed by a moron
Ask Phidias and ask Rodin
Whether seeing their work we don’t say “That’s it!”.

A fort dies when we dismantle it
But a ruined church is always beautiful
And, looking upwards, we recall how the roof looked
But prefer to see the sky rather than stones full of holes.

Let us give thanks – and admit that we previously didn’t have
Monuments like those the Greeks have on their gilded hill
A symbol of beauty sanctified by an act of abuse

Let us give thanks to those who aimed their stupid cannon
Since the result of their action is shame on them
But for us the building has become a Parthenon.

St Luke's Church in Liverpool was badly damaged during an air raid on the City in 1941.  The building has been cleaned but left as a Memorial to the Futility of War.

“Futility” by Wilfred Owen

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?

http://www.edmond-rostand.com/vie.html

Richard Euringer (1891 - 1953) – German writer and airman

Richard Euringer was born in Augsburg in Bavaria, Germany on 4th April 1891.   He was educated at the local grammar school.  When he began publishing poetry, Richard used the pen name Pen-name Florian Ammer.

During the First World War, Richard joined the German Air Force and served as a pilot on the Western front from 1914 until 1916.   He fought with the Turkish Army in Mesopotamia, before returning to Germany to take command of the Flying School in Lechfeld in Bavaria, Germany.

After the war, Richard began writing seriously and had several books published: “Fliegerschule 4” (1929), “Vortrupp Pascha” (1937), “Der Zug durch die Wüste” (1938), “Die Arbeitslosen” (1930), and “Die Fürstenfallen” (1935).

During the 1930s, Richard joined the Nazi Pary and began working for the “Völkischer Beobachter”, which was a Nazi newspaper.  By 1936, he was a member of the advisory boards for writing and broadcasting in the Third Reich.   Richard’s book about his experiences as a pilot in two world wars, “Als Flieger in zwei Kriegen,” was published in 1941 by Philipp Reclam Jr., Leipzig.

Richard died on 29th August 1953 in Essen, Germany.

Photograph of Richard Euringer from Die Mannschaft (Berlin: Limpert, 1937)

Source: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Euringer