The Penguin Book of First World War Poetry (26 page)

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.

ho, for the Red West:
Sail off into the sunset.

‘Fag!':
A fag is a cheap cigarette, or a younger boy who acts as a servant to a more senior boy in British public schools.

sailor suit:
Traditional dress for young boys in Victorian times.

Tipperary:
‘It's a long way to Tipperary', by Jack Judge and Harry Williams, was a popular soldiers' song.

Hymn of Hate:
An anti-British song composed by Ernst Lissauer, very popular in Germany throughout the war, whose aggressive message is best summed up by its closing lines: ‘We have one foe, and one foe alone – England.'

The Face

wraith:
The phantom or spectre of someone, which usually appears as a warning that that person's death is imminent or has just occurred.

Gethsemane

Gethsemane:
The place where Jesus and his disciples spent the night before his crucifixion: ‘Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder' (Matthew 26:36).

ship:
Put on.

I prayed my cup might pass:
See ‘And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt' (Matthew 26:39). Jesus prayed in the garden of Gethsemane to be spared his coming ordeal (‘this cup'), while the disciples he took with him fell asleep, allowing him to be captured.

Anthem for Doomed Youth

passing-bells:
A passing bell is a bell rung immediately after a death to indicate the dead person's passing.

orisons:
Prayers.

pall:
A cloth used to cover a coffin or tomb.

drawing-down of blinds:
Blinds and curtains were traditionally drawn when a funeral cortège passed a house or when there had been a death in the household.

Spring Offensive

begird:
Prepare and strengthen.

drave:
Drove.

Youth in Arms III: Retreat

the old song:
The songs which punctuate this poem appear to be Monro's own invention.

Aftermath

Back to Rest

lees:
Dregs at the bottom of a bottle or glass.

Dulce et Decorum est

Dulce et Decorum est:
This Latin quote, given in full at the end of the poem, is from Horace (65–8 BC),
Odes
III.ii.13. Owen's translation of it, given in a letter to his mother of 16 October 1917, is ‘It is sweet and meet to die for one's country.'

clumsy helmets:
Gas masks, probably of the Phenate-Hexamine Goggle Helmet variety, which consisted of a felt hood with perspex eyepieces.

lime:
Either quicklime, a white caustic substance obtained from heating limestone, or birdlime, which is a sticky substance spread on twigs to trap small birds.

cud:
Partially digested food, brought back into the mouth from the stomach for further chewing.

Field Ambulance in Retreat

Via Dolorosa, Via Sacra:
Latin for ‘Dolorous Way, Sacred Way', the name traditionally given to the road along which Christ carried the cross.
Via Dolorosa
is also the name given to a series of pictures or tableaux representing scenes in the Passion of Christ usually ranged at intervals around the walls of a church, although sometimes they can be found in the open air, especially on roads leading to a church or shrine.

league:
An archaic measure of distance of approximately five kilometres.

standards:
Regimental banners.

Dead Man's Dump

crowns of thorns:
A crown of thorns, a mock symbol of royalty, was forced upon Jesus before his crucifixion, according to Matthew 27:29, Mark 15:17 and John 19:2.

God-ancestralled essences:
Life.

pyre:
A heap of combustible material used for burning corpses.

ichor:
The ethereal fluid supposed to flow like blood in the veins of the gods.

Youth in Arms IV: Carrion

Carrion:
Rotten meat.

Soliloquy II

carrion:
Rotten meat.

Goya:
Francisco José Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828), the Spanish artist whose paintings, drawings and engravings reflected contemporary historical upheavals. His series ‘The Disasters of War' (1810–11) was one of the earliest graphic depictions of war.

Angelo:
Michelangelo (1475–1564), the Italian Renaissance artist famous for numerous paintings, sculptures and architectural projects, among which were the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the statue
David
.

Butchers and Tombs

Cotswold stone:
A distinctive honey-coloured limestone.

the Gloucesters:
Soldiers of the Gloucestershire Regiment, with which Gurney served.

A Private

bedmen:
A variant of ‘beadsmen', men who pray for the salvation of others.

The Volunteer

This poem was actually written before the war and was sent in 1913 to
The Spectator
, where it was kept on file. The war made it suddenly topical, so it appeared in the issue of 8 August 1914.

oriflamme:
The sacred banner of St Denis, received by early French kings from the abbot of St Denis before they set off to go to war. Later it came to mean anything – material or ideal – serving as a rallying point in a struggle.

Agincourt:
Henry V (1387–1422) invaded France on 13 August 1415 and went on to defeat the French at Agincourt on 25 October.

In Flanders Fields

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.

Strange Meeting

Titanic wars:
In Greek mythology, the Titanomachia was the ten-year war waged by Zeus and the Olympian gods against his father, Cronos, and the Titans, who were demi-gods capable of enormous power and strength.

groined:
Scooped out.

flues:
Ventilation shafts.

citadels:
Castles or fortresses.

parried:
To parry is to block a sword or bayonet thrust with another weapon.

Prisoners

meed:
A much deserved reward.

4 BLIGHTY
Going Back

‘
I want to go home
'

There is some uncertainty about the tune of this song. Ivor Gurney gives a transcription in a letter of 22 June 1916 with the comment: ‘a very popular song about here. Not a brave song, but brave men sing it.'

If We Return

Rondeau:
A medieval French verse form consisting of thirteen octosyllabic lines grouped into stanzas of five, three and five lines. The rondeau uses only two rhymes, and the first word or phrase of the first line recurs twice as a refrain after the second and third stanzas.

Home Service

top-hole:
A slang term for ‘excellent'.

Sick Leave

watches:
Fixed periods of duty, usually lasting four hours.

Girl to Soldier on Leave

Titan
: In Greek mythology, the Titans were pre-Olympian gods or demi-gods, the children of Uranus and capable of enormous power and strength.

the son of Zeus:
Zeus had many sons, but this is probably a reference to Hercules, who was famed for his strength and fighting prowess.

Prometheus:
In Greek myth, Prometheus stole fire from the gods for the benefit of mankind and was punished by being chained to a rock where an eagle tore daily at his liver, the liver healing up again every night.

Babel-cities:
According to the Bible, 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. ‘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).

gyves:
Fetters or shackles.

Circe's swine:
In Book 10 of Homer's
Odyssey
, Odysseus' men are turned into pigs by the sorceress Circe while sleeping on the island of Aeaea.

repine:
Feel discontent.

The Pavement

drabs:
Prostitutes.

Leicester Square:
A large square in the centre of London, famous for its theatres and a haunt of pleasure-seekers.

hanger:
A wood on the side of a steep hill or bank.

The Other War

‘
I wore a tunic
'

Sung to the tune of the popular American wartime ballad ‘I Wore a Tulip', by Jack Mahoney and Percy Wenrich.

‘
Blighters
'

‘Blighters':
The title is a pun on the soldiers' term for home – Blighty – and the slang term for a contemptuous or irritating person.

the House:
The theatre.

rag-time:
A popular form of music-hall entertainment, of African-American origin.

‘Home, Sweet Home':
A song with words by John Howard Payne and music by Henry Rowley Bishop, first heard in London in Bishop's opera
Clari, the Maid of Milan
(1823).

Ragtime (Wilfrid Gibson)

Ragtime:
A popular form of music-hall entertainment, of African-American origin.

limelit:
Before the introduction of electricity the best way to produce intense white light was by heating a piece of lime in an oxy-hydrogen flame. Such ‘limelights' were widely used in theatres.

Strand:
A busy thoroughfare in central London.

Air-Raid

brake:
A thicket or clump of bushes.

Zeppelins

Zeppelins:
Named after their inventor, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838–1917), Zeppelins were large, rigid-framed steerable airships which were used for bombing raids on Britain for much of the war. The first raid took place on Great Yarmouth and King's Lynn in Norfolk on 19 January 1915, while the first raid on London took place on 31 May 1915 and killed twenty-eight people, injuring another sixty.

serried:
Standing close together.

surplice:
A religious gown.

‘
Education
'

quick:
Alive. See ‘Who shall give account to him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead' (1 Peter 4:5).

prate:
Talk or chatter idly.

Krupps:
A well-known German family of armament manufacturers, whose name was frequently used to refer to their products.

Socks

20 plain…decrease:
The knitting pattern described in italics in the poem is not actually possible. Knitting socks and other clothing was seen as a patriotic gesture during the war, although many soldiers' memoirs complain of the poor quality of the clothing received.

A War Film

Cinema footage of the Mons Retreat does not exist. Official films do make reference to Mons retrospectively, and there was a feature film released in 1922,
Mons
(Gaumont British Instructional), which was dramatized but used veterans as extras and real army uniforms and equipment.

Nine moons:
Nine months.

The War Films

God on earth:
Jesus, the son of God.

seven sins:
The seven deadly sins are Anger, Covetousness, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Pride and Sloth.