Sonnets from a prison camp

Chapter 105: V

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About This Book

A sequence of sonnets composed by a soldier in enemy captivity during the First World War, recording frontline violence, the suddenness of bombardment, marches and captures, the strain of waiting and the loss of comrades, and the solace found in memory and poetic labour. Many poems juxtapose immediate scenes—exploding shrapnel, crowded billets, marches, and internment camps—with reveries of homeland landscapes and classical or moral reflections. Sections move between field incidents, the nadir of imprisonment, thoughts of home and influences, and short epigrams or maxims, showing how verse acted as a mental bulwark against despair while exploring themes of fate, endurance, and the persistence of inner freedom.

V

Thine be it to direct their steps aright

Unto that bourne which doth not cease to haunt.

They cry for it, not knowing what they want,

Or what for man is best—the use of sight;

Some inkling of the precious power of light,

To glorify a mean existence gaunt,

And check the bitter self-inflicted taunt

That nothing worthy calls them home at night.

And thou can’st set them questing, make them feel

The nearness of true knowledge, where it lies

In common things with which they daily deal,

Yet ending in the Splendour of the skies;

Or teach them in shunned volumes to detect

The simplicity of letters unsuspect.

Hesepe, 16th June