‘Men Who March Away’
purblind: Lacking in vision, insight, or understanding.
Dalliers: People who dawdle or take things slowly.
braggarts: Boastful people.
Marching Men
Calvary: The hill upon which Christ was crucified.
Seven swords: A conflation of the seven wounds inflicted on Christ at his crucifixion and the seven sorrows of his mother Mary, a series of religious observances instigated in the thirteenth century.
rent: Torn.
Fragment
pashed: Smashed.
phosphorus: A substance that shines or glows green in the dark, often noticed on breaking waves at sea.
2 SOMEWHERE IN FRANCE
In Trenches
First Time In
Oilsheets: Pieces of canvas impregnated with oil to make them waterproof, used to cover dugouts.
Ulysses: In Greek mythology, Odysseus – known as Ulysses in Latin – blinded the Cyclops Polyphemus after the Trojan Wars and was cursed by the god Poseidon never to reach home. The goddess Athena intervened, and after ten years Ulysses returned to his family in Ithaca.
‘David of the White Rock’: Sometimes known by its Welsh title, ‘Dafydd y Garreg Wen’, this folk song was highly popular among Welsh soldiers.
‘Slumber Song’: Probably the traditional Welsh lullaby ‘All Through the Night’, which talks of how ‘Soft the drowsy hours are creeping | Hill and vale in slumber sleeping’.
Beautiful tune…roguish words: Gurney may have in mind one of the mildly obscene versions of the Salvation Army hymn ‘Wash Me in the Water’ popular during the war, or perhaps ‘Big Willie’s Luvly Daughter’, a variant of ‘Where are the Boys of the Village Tonight’ favoured by the Welsh Fusiliers which, according to David Jones in his notes to Part V of In Parenthesis (London: Faber & Faber, 1938), suggested that ‘the object of the British Expedition into France was to enjoy the charms of the Emperor’s daughter’.
Break of Day in the Trenches
druid: A pre-Christian Celtic priest.
poppy: The red poppy (Papaver rhoeas) flourishes in disturbed ground and was a ubiquitous sight on the Western Front. The practice of selling artificial poppies to raise money for wounded ex-servicemen immediately after the war resulted in it becoming an internationally recognized symbol of remembrance.
‘Bombed last night’
Sung to the tune of the music-hall song ‘Drunk Last Night and Drunk the Night Before’.
Higher Germany: An allusion to the traditional English folk song ‘High Germany’, which describes a lover going off to fight in the wars between England and France of 1702 to 1713.
Breakfast
Hull United: No football team with that name existed in 1914 when the poem was written; like Jimmy Stainthorp and Billy Bradford, it seems to be Gibson’s own invention. However, Hull City Reserves and Halifax Town both played in the Midland Counties League and met twice in 1914 – on 3 October and 12 November – so one of these matches may be what Gibson has in mind.
In the Trenches
Demeter: The Greek corn goddess, whose search for her daughter Persephone took her into the underworld.
Psyche: In Greek mythology, the woman so beautiful that men would worship her instead of courting her. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was jealous and sent her son Eros to make Psyche fall in love with an unworthy man, but he fell in love with her himself. After several complications, the two eventually united. Psyche is also the Greek for ‘soul’.
Pleiades: Also known as the Seven Sisters, in Greek mythology these were the daughters of the demi-god Atlas and were nymphs in the train of the goddess Artemis. They were eventually placed in the sky, where they form one of the most visible constellations of stars in the northern hemisphere.
Orion swings his belt: In Greek mythology, Orion the hunter was unwittingly killed by the goddess Artemis, who, in remorse, placed him in the sky as a constellation of stars; three parallel stars in the middle of the constellation represent his belt.
carrion crow: A common black crow which feeds on rotten flesh (carrion).
Winter Warfare
Tabs: Senior officers in the British army wore red tabs on their lapels.
rime: The frost caused by a sudden and rapid drop in temperature.
spurs: Worn by senior officers as well as cavalry in the British army.
hoary: Grey or white with age, or with a kind of frost.
Hauptman Kälte: German for ‘Captain Cold’. (‘Hauptman’ is more usually spelled ‘Hauptmann’.)
Futility
clays: A poeticism for ‘mankind’, possibly echoing Genesis 2:7, where God creates Adam from ‘the dust of the ground’, or John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667): ‘Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay | To mould me man?’ (X, 743–4).
cold star: The Earth.
fatuous: Foolish and pointless.
Exposure
glozed: Shining brightly.
‘We’re here because we’re here’
Sung to the tune of ‘Auld Lang Syne’.
Poem: Abbreviated from the Conversation of Mr. T. E. H.
Frequently credited to the philosopher and poet T. E. Hulme (1883–1917), this poem has a somewhat confusing history. It first appeared in Pound’s periodical Catholic Anthology in November 1915 under Hulme’s name. When Pound included ‘The Complete Poetical Works of T. E. Hulme’ as an appendix to his collection Umbra (1920), he added the note ‘Hulme’s five poems were published as his Complete Poetical Works at the end of Ripostes, in 1912; there is, and now can be, no further addition, unless my abbreviation of some of his talk made when he came home with his first wound in 1915 may be half counted among them.’ On this evidence, the poem has been credited to Pound.
Piccadilly: A busy thoroughfare in central London.
Illusions
gloze: Insert an explanation or comment upon.
nemesis: An agent of retribution and downfall.
malkins: Scarecrows, ragged puppets or grotesque effigies.
The Silent One
Bucks: Buckinghamshire.
stripes: Embroidered cloth chevrons worn on the upper sleeve to denote rank. In the British army, a lance corporal wears one stripe, a full corporal wears two, and a sergeant wears three.
finicking: Excessively fussy or exacting.
Moonrise over Battlefield
fard: Cosmetics.
punk: Prostitute.
white-shirted: German shock troops wore white overshirts as camouflage during the winter.
The Redeemer
lugged: Slang for ‘carried or dragged with difficulty’.
mirk: Murk, gloom.
thorny crown: The mock symbol of royalty forced upon Jesus before his crucifixion, according to Matthew 27:29, Mark 15:17 and John 19:2.
Lancaster on Lune: The river Lune flows through the northern town of Lancaster.
Serenade
Schubert: Franz Schubert (1797–1828), the Austrian classical composer, whose instrumental works combine a classical heritage with nineteenth-century romanticism.
‘Heldenleben’: Literally meaning ‘A Hero’s Life’, the symphonic poem Ein Heldenleben by Richard Strauss (1864–1949) was first performed in 1898.
‘wir haben | Sich geliebt’: Gurney’s German seems to be faulty here; he has written ‘we loved ourselves’, whereas the context suggests that he meant to write ‘we have such love’.
Behind the Lines
Grotesque
Dante: Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), the Italian poet, philosopher and author of La Divina Commedia (c. 1314–21), which describes his journey into hell through seven circles of sin.
Louse Hunting
Gargantuan: According to the French humanist and satirical author François Rabelais (c. 1494–c. 1553) in his Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532–52), Gargantua was a giant known for his voracious hunger and who ate his nursemaid.
smutch: An archaic variant for ‘smudge’.
/> Highland fling: The traditional Scottish dance which involves vigorous whirling and raising the arms above the head.
revel: A riotous celebration.
At Senlis Once
cataract: A large waterfall descending steeply or in steps.
mill-sails: Blades attached to the arms of a windmill.
an honest glass: The correct measure of an alcoholic drink.
pierrots: In French pantomime, Pierrot is a lovesick clown who wears a frilled, spotty shirt and has a whitened, tear-stained face. ‘Pierrot’ was the generic name for comic performers in music halls.
Crucifix Corner
chlorinated: Chlorine was used as a water-purifier on the Western Front.
Noel: Christmas.
new term: The spring term of the academic year begins in January.
Severn: A river that rises in Wales and runs through Gloucestershire.
last Trump: The trumpet call that will awaken the dead at the end of the world: ‘In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump…the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed’ (1 Corinthians 15:52).
‘Hundred Pipers and A’’: A traditional Scots song, with modern words by Lady Nairne (1766–1845), used as a marching song by Scottish regiments.
‘Happy we’ve been a’together’: A sentimental Scottish folk song popular among Highland regiments during the Great War.
leavens: Agencies which have a transforming effect from within.
Vlamertinghe: Passing the Chateau, July, 1917
‘And all her silken flanks with garlands drest’: A quotation from ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ by John Keats (1795–1821), first published in Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St Agnes, and Other Poems (1820).
poppies: The red poppy (Papaver rhoeas) flourishes in disturbed ground and was a ubiquitous sight on the Western Front. The practice of selling artificial poppies to raise money for wounded ex-servicemen immediately after the war resulted in it becoming an internationally recognized symbol of remembrance.
damask: A reversible lustrous fabric and the cloth used to make Roman emperors’ robes.
vermilion: A rich purple-red colour. In Roman society, the only citizen allowed to wear purple was the emperor.
Dead Cow Farm
An ancient saga: Snorri Sturluson’s Edda (c. 1220), a textbook of Norse poetry, which tells how the cow Auðumla created the first man, Búri, by licking salty blocks of ice.
The Sower
wain: An archaism for a heavy wagon used in farming.
August, 1918
shoon: An archaism for ‘shoes’.
‘Therefore is the name of it called Babel’
‘Therefore…Babel’: See ‘Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth’ (Genesis 11:9). The Tower of Babel was built by mankind to reach heaven. God was angered by this arrogance, and divided the people by scattering them over the face of the earth and giving them different languages.
lees: Dregs at the bottom of a bottle or glass.
Comrades of War
Canadians
Canadians: Approximately 600,000 Canadian soldiers fought in the First World War, of whom 210,100 were wounded, captured or killed.
Saskatchewan: A central western state in Canada.
Ontario: A central state in Canada.
Jack London: An American novelist and travel writer (1876–1916), best known for The Call of the Wild (1903), White Fang (1906) and John Barleycorn (1913).
Woodbine Willie
Woodbine Willie: Studdert Kennedy was nicknamed ‘Woodbine Willie’ by the troops, because of his practice of supplying them with plentiful cigarettes, including the Woodbine brand.
Apologia pro Poemate Meo
Apologia pro Poemate Meo: Latin for ‘Apology for my poetry’.
Seraphic: Belonging to the highest order of angels.
spate: A sudden flood.
My Company
Foule!…mon corps: French for ‘Horde! Your entire soul is standing upright in my body’.
Jules Romains: The French writer and playwright (1885–1972) of largely philosophical texts and the chief exponent of Unanimism, a literary theory positing a collective spirit or personality.
Samoa: A group of islands in the Pacific Ocean, about 2,700 kilometres north-east of New Zealand. According to Robert Louis Stevenson in Chapter V of In the South Seas (1888), ‘Samoans are the most chaste of Polynesians, and they are to this day entirely fertile; Marquesans are the most debauched.’ Later, however, he alludes to ‘the story of the discovery of Tutuila, when the really decent women of Samoa prostituted themselves in public to the French’.
Before the Battle
jet: A black semi-precious stone.
numbered down, formed fours: This refers to the military practice whereby soldiers number themselves off in fours and then line up four abreast, usually before marching.
Greater Love
Greater Love: See John 15:13: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’
lure: A contraction of ‘allure’.
In Memoriam Private D. Sutherland…
In Memoriam: Latin for ‘in memory of’.
To his Love
quick: Alive. See ‘Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead’ (1 Peter 4:5).
Severn: A river that rises in Wales and runs through Gloucestershire.
Trench Poets
Donne: John Donne (1572–1631), the metaphysical poet and churchman, was dean of St Paul’s Cathedral from 1621 and is best known for his religious and erotic poems and sermons.
‘Get with child a mandrake-root’: A quotation from Donne’s ‘Song’ (‘Goe and catche a falling starre’). The mandrake is a plant belonging to the potato family, the root of which is thought to resemble a man. It is considered a symbol of fertility and virility, although it is also a soporific. In the Bible, Rachel uses mandrake to promote conception (Genesis 30:14–15).
‘I long to talk with some old lover’s ghost’: A quotation from Donne’s ‘Loves deitie’, which, like ‘Goe and catche a falling starre’, was first published in Poems, by J. D. With elegies on the authors death (1633).
the Elegies: Fifteen poems by Donne, almost all written in the 1590s, that take the Roman poet Ovid (43 BC–AD 18) as their principal model and resemble his poems in ingenious wit and frank and unapologetic eroticism.
‘What needst thou have more covering than a man’: From Donne’s ‘Elegie XIX: To his Mistris going to Bed’.
Maud: A lengthy experimental poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92), first published in 1855. According to his son Hallam, in Chapter XIX of his Alfred Lord Tennyson: A Memoir (1897), Tennyson described the poem as ‘a little Hamlet, the history of a morbid poetic soul under the blighting influence of a recklessly speculative age’. The poem ends with the narrator redeeming himself in the Crimean War.
3 ACTION
Rendezvous with Death
Before Action
benison: A blessing.
Into Battle
Dog-Star: Sirius, the brightest star in the northern hemisphere, and known as the Dog Star as it is part of the constellation Canis Major, or the Big Dog.
Sisters Seven: A constellation. In Greek mythology the Seven Sisters were the daughters of the demi-god Atlas and were nymphs in the train of the goddess Artemis. They were eventually placed in the sky, where they form one of the most visible constellations of stars in the northern hemisphere.
Orion’s Belt: In Greek mythology, Orion the hunter was unwittingly killed by the goddess Artemis, who, in remorse, placed him in the sky as a constellation of stars; three parallel stars in the middle of the constellation represent his belt.
Two Sonnets
This poem has a footnote: ‘12 June 1915’.
Hoary: Ancient or ve
nerable.
‘I tracked a dead man down a trench’
This poem has a footnote: ‘Written in trenches by “Glencourse Wood”, 19–20th April, 1915.’ Glencourse Wood was five kilometres east of Ypres. It changed hands a number of times during the war and was finally taken by the Australians in September 1917.
Ballad of the Three Spectres
fleering: Mocking, grinning or grimacing.
The Question
Gey: Dialect for ‘very’.
bumming: Dialect for ‘making a buzzing noise’.
Doomsday: The end of the world, when God returns to judge all mankind: ‘Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of Judgement’ (Matthew 12:36).
The Soldier Addresses His Body
Hippogriff: A mythical beast having the head, wings and front legs of a griffin (itself a mythical creature having the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion) and the back legs of a horse.
agate: A precious gem, composed of quartz and of various colours.
Wyvern: A mythical beast in the form of a serpentine dragon with wings, and with an eagle’s talons on its feet.
kvass: A Russian alcoholic drink, brewed from rye bread or grains and sometimes flavoured with herbs or fruit.
The Day’s March
grides: Grates.
Battle
Eve of Assault: Infantry Going Down to Trenches
Yorks and Lancs: The York and Lancaster Regiment numbered 57,000 men during the First World War, of whom seven in ten were either wounded or killed.
drubbing: Beating.
the ’Un: The Hun.
Headquarters
league: An archaic measure of distance of approximately five kilometres.
ranging: Used here to mean both ‘wide-ranging’ and ‘within range’.
It’s a Queer Time
Treasure Island: The protagonists’ goal in the piratical yarn of the same name by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94), published in 1883 and set in Cornwall and the West Indies.
the Spice winds: A conflation of the Spice Islands and the trade winds. The Spice Islands include Malaysia and Indonesia; their production of spices meant that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries trade was highly sought with them. Trade winds are winds that blow regularly in one direction, found about 30° from the Equator.
The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry Page 20