Sonnets from a prison camp

Chapter 44: X

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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.

X

There is no single foot of English soil,

Howe’er defaced, that is not holy ground.

There is no spot where great souls more abound,

Or where man’s greatness is more truly royal.

Who hath o’ertopped our Shakespeare? Who by toil

Of kingly thought more lofty, more profound,

Than Newton e’er from heaven’s majestic round

Brought home at night a more stupendous spoil?

One thing I find not well. In our reserve

We oft-times cloak our excellence, ashamed

Not of our imperfections, but our Best;

And what is finest, most our own, we serve

In some mean dish, or pass it by unclaimed,

Leaving the noble in us unexpressed.

Rastatt, 9th May