Poetry Promenade -- Julian Grenfell

I had a hard time picking a poet to start our Poetry Promenade series. I wanted someone who had written a good ‘beginning of the war’ poem, but not someone so well known that you’d all be rolling your eyes in front of your computer screens going “Merc, really, we already know about him!” Rest assured, we’ll have time for the Brookes and the Sassoons and the Owens later – I think they’re famous for a reason, and I want to share them with you again because they’ve all got poems that I really enjoy.


Poetry Promenade -- Julian Grenfell

Julian Grenfell is fairly well known among academics who study the poetry of the Great War, but I’d never heard of him before picking up several anthologies on the subject. He’s also interesting to me because the two poems that he’s best known for are so very different – one of them, “Into Spring” is a romantic, optimistic portrait of the mortality and oneness with the Earth that death brings, and the other a cynical, sniping remark on the aristocratic, toffee-nosed –and-useless General Staff that he refused to join called “Prayer for those on Staff.”

Grenfell was born in 1888 to a fairly aristocratic family. His father, William Henry Grenfell, later became Baron Desborough for his political contributions after a long career in the house of Commons as a conservative member for Salisbury. Julian was educated at Eton and later at Balliol College, and was apparently writing poetry from a very young age. He joined the army in 1910 as a member of the Royal Dragoons and served in both South Africa and India before being assigned to the French front as the war began in 1914. (Several sources report that by 1914 Grenfell was dissatisfied with life in the Army, and was considering leaving just before war was suddenly declared.) He won several commendations and was mentioned in dispatches, earning him a promotion to Captain.

So well liked and respected was Grenfell that he was also earmarked for promotion to the General Staff as an Aide-de-Camp, a promotion that he refused, writing the satirical “Prayer” after the incident. He died on the 27th of May in 1915 after 13 days in hospital, following a wound to his skull from flying shrapnel. Interestingly, his poem “Into Battle” was published in the Times on the same day as his obituary.

From what I've heard of the first episode of Downton, it sounds as though Matthew is following the same meteoric rise that Grenfell experienced. I wonder also if he would have been inspired to write a poem like "Prayer," and what he would have thought of "Into Battle" given what he experiences at the Somme.

Into Battle

The naked earth is warm with Spring,
And with green grass and bursting trees
Leans to the sun's gaze glorying,
And quivers in the sunny breeze;
And Life is Colour and Warmth and Light,
And a striving evermore for these;
And he is dead who will not fight;
And who dies fighting has increase.


The fighting man shall from the sun
Take warmth, and life from the glowing earth;
Speed with the light-foot winds to run,
And with the trees to newer birth;
And find, when fighting shall be done,
Great rest, and fullness after dearth.


All the bright company of Heaven
Hold him in their high comradeship,
The Dog-star and the Sisters Seven,
Orion's Belt and sworded hip.


The woodland trees that stand together,
They stand to him each one a friend,
They gently speak in the windy weather;
They guide to valley and ridges' end.


The kestrel hovering by day,
And the little owls that call by night,
Bid him be swift and keen as they,
As keen of ear, as swift of sight.


The blackbird sings to him, "Brother, brother,
If this be the last song you shall sing
Sing well, for you may not sing another;
Brother, sing."


In dreary, doubtful, waiting hours,
Before the brazen frenzy starts,
The horses show him nobler powers;
O patient eyes, courageous hearts!


And when the burning moment breaks,
And all things else are out of mind,
And only Joy of Battle takes
Him by the throat, and makes him blind—


Though joy and blindness he shall know,
Not caring much to know, that still,
Nor lead nor steel shall reach him, so
That it be not the Destined Will.


The thundering line of battle stands,
And in the air Death moans and sings;
But Day shall clasp him with strong hands,
And Night shall fold him in soft wings.

------

Prayer for Those On Staff

Fighting in mud, we turn to Thee
In these dread times of battle, Lord,
To keep us safe, if so may be,
From shrapnel snipers, shell and sword.

Yet not on us - (for we are men
Of meaner clay, who fight in clay) -
But on the Staff, the Upper Ten,
Depends the issue of the day.

The Staff is working with its brains
While we are sitting in the trench;
The Staff the universe ordains
(Subject to Thee and General French).

God, help the Staff - especially
The young ones, many of them sprung
From our high aristocracy;
Their task is hard, and they are young.

O lord, who mad'st all things to be
And madest some things very good
Please keep the extra ADC
From horrid scenes, and sights of blood.