Sonnets from a prison camp

Chapter 130: XII

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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.

XII

’Tis not these Islands sundered from the Deep

By many a winding and melodious strand,

Lovely as when they issued from the Hand

That bade the Shannon from his cradle leap;

That smoothed the Cotswolds to the wandering sheep,

And spread the waters o’er the Solway sand,

And motioned where Ben Cruachan should stand,

And in his shadow laid Loch Awe to sleep;

’Tis not these shimmering woods of oak and beech,

Nor these green shires, each in its golden frame,

Like pictures hanging side by side, and each

Entangled with the music of its name—

Not all this weight of glory passing speech

Full measure of the English soul can claim.

Hesepe, 11th July