Sonnets from a prison camp

Chapter 52: VII

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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.

VII

With little tasks we wile the hours away,

Each bringing shyly forth his piteous store

Of erudition, oft-times dubious lore,

Since memory cupboards all we dare to say.

One tells us how to mine, one how to lay

A crop of good Rhodesian maize. Nay more,

The skirts of metaphysics we explore,

And touch the dread fringe of psychology.

O to be hidden here amongst the seams

Of History’s garment, while the whole world rocks

Upon its base! When every day that gleams

Tells us that England still against all shocks

Raises her front; and starting from our dreams,

Each morning Hesepe the lonely mocks!

Hesepe, 30th May