Sonnets from a prison camp

Chapter 41: VII

Open in WeRead

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.

VII

Oft at the hour when night’s aërial spring

Waters with dew the beauty of the morn,

What time another rosy day is born,

Along these lanes the echoing footsteps ring

Of marching men, who to their marching sing,

Deep-voiced, light-hearted. Yet they do not scorn

Due pause and measure, and the theme well-worn

From the full heart of Germany they bring.

But we, whose fathers once in songs as fine

Unburdened hearts as full, and with the power

Of our dear country pulsing in each line,

Scorn to remember England, and to our

Incomparable heritage of song

Prefer the tinkle of some mean ding-dong.

Rastatt, 9th May