In November 2018 I quoted the whole of Lawrence Binyon’s poem For the Fallen which contains the famous lines of remembrance:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.At the going down of the sun and in the morningWe will remember them.
Since then Peter Jackson’s colourised film of footage from the First World War (with a convincing modern audio soundtrack) has astonished and moved audiences who have seen it. Watch They shall not grow old if you can and imagine…. Just imagine….
This year my chosen tribute to the Armed Forces and their sacrifices comes from the pen of D H Lawrence, mostly known for novels like Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love and Lady Chatterley’s Lover, all very different masterpieces. He was also a master craftsman of the short story e.g. The Rocking Horse Winner and Odour of Chrysanthemums. Less well known are the essays and journalism he wrote before, during and after the “Great War” revealing his characteristic humanity and his sympathy for ordinary men and women who were damaged or destroyed by the failure of diplomacy. Lawrence also wrote hundreds of poems and one less well-known poem is an evocation of both Autumn and a metaphor for dying soldiers. The short lines and random rhymes are like raindrops pattering. “Heaven’s fields” reference the Greek land of the dead where fallen heroes live in Elysium. In the imagery of the poem, leaves are mini-deaths who mingle with the seeds and earth to be resurrected (“caught up aloft”) and rain becomes tears and rain “echoes even” in rhymes with “grain…. pain…. slain…. pain…. falling as rain….”
by DH Lawrence (published February 1917, written the previous Autumn)
The plane leaves
fall black and wet
on the lawn;
fall black and wet
on the lawn;
the cloud sheaves
in heaven’s fields set
droop and are drawn
in heaven’s fields set
droop and are drawn
in falling seeds of rain;
the seed of heaven
on my face
the seed of heaven
on my face
falling — I hear again
like echoes even
that softly pace
like echoes even
that softly pace
heaven’s muffled floor,
the winds that tread
out all the grain
the winds that tread
out all the grain
of tears, the store
harvested
in the sheaves of pain
harvested
in the sheaves of pain
caught up aloft:
the sheaves of dead
men that are slain
the sheaves of dead
men that are slain
now winnowed soft
on the floor of heaven;
manna invisible
on the floor of heaven;
manna invisible
of all the pain
here to us given;
finely divisible
falling as rain.
here to us given;
finely divisible
falling as rain.
