Poetry and the First World War

Studying Wilfred Owen's Dulce Et Decorum Est (it's a brilliant poem...you should read it now if you haven't already) in school, I find myself often wondering just how limited our exposure in general is to poetry during the First World War. Sure, it's a great poem but it being the only one students generally read from that period, I feel, makes us view the War in a particular way--The Bad Way.

Don't get me wrong. I understand that the horrid imageries Owen presented in his poem are probably very close to reality (fun fact: This poem though it may seem like it isn't autobiographical in nature; it's a purely fictional narrative). Here is a bit for you to get grossed out :)

"If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace 

Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; 

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud"

And while I'm all for disillusionment and propagating the truth and uncovering lies behind masterful propaganda, I feel like there are so many more perspectives that we have missed out on. What about the women who stayed behind and supported the war effort by working tirelessly in the high-hazard ammunition factories? What about some other soldiers who would like to us to view them as martyrs and not just lambs to slaughter?

I couldn't agree more vehemently that all war and suffering is wrong. But my point is why can't the system let us come to that conclusion ourselves? Why is it that after all these years we are still deprived of information and viewpoints? With all due respect, the Great War had more to it than Owen's sentiments of disillusionment and shock, at least from the literary point of view.

So in that spirit, I present before you a poem which I think embodies some of these sentiments. It's called Non-Combatants and it's been composed Evelyn Underhill. This poem reveals the participation of women in the war; how they stayed back at home working, sacrificing and waiting nervously for their sons and husbands to return. I hope you'll find this perspective refreshing (I have put my favourite lines in bold)!

NON-COMBATANTS

NEVER of us be said

That we reluctant stood

As sullen children, and refused to dance

To the keen pipe that sounds across the fields of France.

Though shrill the note and wild,

Though hard the steps and slow,

The dancing floor defiled,

The measure full of woe,

And dread

The solemn figure that the dancers tread,

We faltered not. Of us, this word shall not be said.

Never of us be said

We had no war to wage,

Because our womanhood,

Because the weight of age,

Held us in servitude.

None sees us fight,

Yet we in the long night

Battle to give release

To all whom we must send to seek and die for peace.

When they have gone, we in a twilit place

Meet Terror face to face,

And strive

With him, that we may save our fortitude alive.

Theirs be the hard, but ours the lonely bed.

Nought were we spared—of us, this word shall not be said.

Never of us be said

We failed to give Godspeed to our adventurous dead.

Not in self-pitying mood

We saw them go,

When they set forth on those spread wings of pain:

So glad, so young,

As birds whose fairest lays are yet unsung

Dart to the height

And thence pour down their passion of delight,

Their passing into melody was turned.

So were our hearts uplifted from the low,

Our griefs to rapture burned;

And, mounting with the music of that throng,

Cutting a path athwart infinity,

Our puzzled eyes

Achieved the healing skies

To find again

Each wingèd spirit as a speck of song

Embosomed in Thy deep eternity.

Though from our homely fields that feathered joy has fled

We murmur not. Of us, this word shall not be said.