Re: Abridged summary of ww1lit@googlegroups.com - 1 Message in 1 Topic

[Chris Spriet]

Dear Elsa,

 

Ledwidge's grave is 'interestingly' situated in Artillery Wood military cemetery, to the north-east of Ieper. Artillery Wood is a mere couple of metres' distance from Carrefour des Roses, where lethal gas had been used for the first time in world history, on 22nd April 1915. All his life 'Frank' Ledwidge had been trying, as he said repeatedly, to become a decent poet; there is every sign that this would have happened, had it not been for the war.

 

Even though he died on 31 July 1917, the opening day of the Third Battle of Ypres (aka Passchendaele), he did not die a heroic death. He appears to have been involved in a casual chat with a couple of his pals around noontime, when the proverbial shell "with his name on" detonated among them. 

 

Shortly after his death, his fellow poet-soldier Ivor Gurney wrote a letter, stating that 'and so Ledwidge is dead. He was a true poet and the story of his life is a sad but romantic tale, like that of so many others, so wastefully spent. yet the fire may not have been struck in them save for the war...'

 

You may not know, but Ledwidge was a fervent Irish nationalist who dreamed of an independent Ireland, which would break away from the UK, yet in 1914 he volunteered for the British Army. The fact of his going to fight became all the more questionable when on Easter Monday 1916 an armed rebellion of nationalists in Dublin was drowned in blood. 

Not until rather recently was Ledwidge forgotten, not just in Boezinghe but also in his home country and in English literature at large.

 

In the same military cemetery just two or three rows behind Ledwidge's gravestone, the headstone of another poet, the Welsh nationalist soldier-poet Hedd Wynn (a man named Evans, and the one-time Welsh national bard), can be found. Hedd Wynn's life and times was turned into a film, which is available as a double dvd.

As for Ledwidge, the text of the poem Soliloquy used to be a fixture on the national curriculum of Ireland and the UK. Not quite untypically, and for whatever reasons of patriotic or moral decency, Ledwidge's very last line 'a little grave that has no name / whence one turn away in shame' got to be amputated from his text afterwards.

 

Soliloquy

 

When I was young I had a care
Lest I should cheat me of my share
Of that which makes it sweet to strive
For life, and dying still survive,
A name in sunshine written higher
Than lark or poet dare aspire.

But I grew weary doing well.
Besides, 'twas sweeter in that hell,
Down with the loud banditti people
Who robbed the orchards, climbed the steeple
For jackdaws' eyes and made the cock
Crow ere 'twas daylight on the clock.
I was so very bad the neighbours
Spoke of me at their daily labours.

And now I'm drinking wine in France,
The helpless child of circumstance.
To-morrow will be loud with war,
How will I be accounted for?

It is too late now to retrieve
A fallen dream, too late to grieve
A name unmade, but not too late
To thank the gods for what is great;
A keen-edged sword, a soldier's heart,
Is greater than a poet's art.
And greater than a poet's fame
A little grave that has no name.

Francis Ledwidge

The poem has not lost any of its original beauty and of the subdued anticipation ('How will I be accounted for?') of what is the future holds in store. I think it is particularly in step with these rain-soaked times of Remembrance. 

 

If you could ever lay hands on it, a cd entitled 'SONGS OF PEACE' (1999) was devoted to Ledwidge; this happened within the project of the 'Passchendaele Peace Concerts'. It is both reminiscent of Ledwidge's pastoral poetry, highly interesting and quite moving.

 

Best regards,

 

Chris

2012/11/1 <ww1...@googlegroups.com>

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• Francis Ledwidge Museum [1 Update]

 Francis Ledwidge Museum

Elsa Franker <elsaf...@yahoo.co.uk> Nov 01 08:59AM  

Dear all,
 
The Irish WWI poet Francis Ledwidge was killed in action in July 1917 at the third battle of Ieper. He is buried outside Ieper, I have seen his grave-stone.
 
 
 
In Janeville, Slane, ...more

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