Another Trevor Royle book about Scotland in the Great War and another success. 'In Flanders Fields' combines poetry and prose from the many Scots literary works of the war. Following a concise introduction there comes a short biography of the individual writers and examples of their work.
In my view one of the most remarkable was the Scots born and English educated Charles Hamilton Sorley. A brief reading of his poems and letters reveals a lively bright intellect, no hatred of the enemy, and a refreshing honesty concerning the war. This man had a tremendous future ahead of him. However already reaching the rank of Captain, Sorley was killed by a bullet through the head at Loos on 13th October 1915. A great loss I fear to his country.
He was twenty years old.
Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895-1915)
When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,
"Yet many a better one has died before."
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.
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