William Noel Hodgson - Before Action

[klaartje]

In our seminar of English, I discussed Before Action”, written by
William Noel Hodgson (1893-1916). This was thus a poem written in war,
just before his death.

By all the glories of the day
And the cool evening’s benison: By the last sunset touch that lay
Upon the hills when day was done:
By beauty lavishly outpoured
And blessings carelessly received
By all the days that I have lived,
Make me a soldier, Lord.

By all of all men’s hopes and fears,
And all the wonders poets sing,
The laughter of unclouded years,
And every sad and lovely thing:
By the romantic ages stored
With high endeavour that was his,
By all his mad catastrophes,
Make me a man, O Lord.

I, that on my familiar hill
Saw with uncomprehending eyes
A hundred of Thy sunsets spill
Their fresh and sanguine sacrifice,
Ere the sun swings his noonday sword
Must say good-bye to all of this: -
By all delights that I shall miss,
Help me to die, O Lord.

Once I understood the whole poem, I could quite appreciate it. It
still affects, because war is a timeless theme.
What do you think at first sight of the poem, without having some
background information or the whole discussion?
I have a lot of feelings especially with the last stanza (it’s just
before his death, does he want to die, or doesn’t he want to die
because of his friends in war?). It would be very interesting to read
some thoughts about this.

[Dead...@aol.com]

Before Action

By W.N. Hodgson

 

The form of this poem is that of a prayer or hymn; it is like the old monastic Vespers, the evening prayer said at sunset, but the form and metre is that of a hymn. Written two days before the notorious Battle of the Somme in which its writer became a casualty, it could also be seen as prophetic, as his own memorial.

 

The first stanza prays that God will make the poet a soldier and this is asked by invoking the beauty of the natural world, and the weather – ‘the glories of the day / And the cool evening’s benison’ (a word that means ‘blessing’). The references to sunshine, coolness and the beauty of the sunset are all good things as is ‘the beauty lavishly outpoured’ which means the beauty of the natural world and ‘blessings carelessly received’ – all the small gladdening things we take for granted. Finally he prays ‘by all the days that I have lived’ almost as though he is aware that he hasn’t many left and suggesting gratitude for those he has had.

 

The second stanza invokes human memories and feelings; ‘man’s hopes and fears’ and ‘The laughter of unclouded years’ – that carefree laughter mainly enjoyed by the young and looking back to the pre-war years. ‘All the wonders poets sing’ can refer to most human experiences, since there are few that they have not sung. The last few lines encompass ‘every sad and lovely thing’ that was recorded by ‘the romantic ages’. This generally refers to the medieval and the Renaissance.  These times recorded mankind’s ‘high endeavour’- the great age of Art, Science and Voyages of Discovery. However the writer also prays ‘By all his mad catastrophes’ – the dreadful wars and disasters he has caused, which are the other side of human nature. The request he prays for is ‘Make me a man, O Lord.’

 

The final stanza does not choose to pray by the beauty of nature or by the achievements and disasters of humans. Instead the poet puts himself at the centre of the image, watching from his lookout post, ‘my familiar hill’ as God’s sunsets spill ‘Their fresh and sanguine (bloody) sacrifice’ a reminder of the human sacrifice that is about to take place before the sun, in another guise, ‘swings his noonday sword’. These images are connected both with those of stanza 1 through the sun’s place in nature and with the ‘mad catastrophes’ of stanza 2 through the use of ‘sanguine sacrifice’ and ‘noonday sword’. The poet makes his farewell ‘to all of this’ and his final prayer is a moving one, ‘By all delights that I shall miss / help me to die, O Lord.’ The use of the sunset as a metaphor for the end of a life as well as the end of the day is not original, but it acquires pathos in the light of his death two days later.

 

The form of the poem is three octets (eight line stanzas) each of which is divided into two quatrains by its rhyme scheme which is a-b-a-b-c-d-d-c, although in each of the first two stanzas, lines six and seven use half-rhymes. Each octet is also a single sentence and there is no use of caesura, which gives a continuity and flow to the stanza. The choice of three stanzas for a prayer may be related to the trinity and three is a number that has a satisfyingly rounded effect. The flow and continuity is aided by the choice of iambic tetrameter as the metre for the poem and the whole effect is of something complete, like the life of the man who wrote it.

[Margaret Crane]

I've read a suggestion that "my familiar hill" was a reference to Hodgson's time at Durham School - which does indeed (like almost everywhere in Durham) sit high on a hill. The chapel (with Hodgson's name engraved with about ninety others on a memorial wall) is at the highest point of the school grounds. It does seem rather more likely that Hodgson would have spent a hundred nights in the same place during his schooldays than during his time in the trenches.

 

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[David Hughes]

I think it particularly likely that 'my familiar hill' is indeed Durham School. Look eastward from there at sunset, and you are looking at the the red stone of Durham Cathedral, whose stone glows a particularly bright red at sunset - with the light behind the the onlooker, but fully on the Cathedral - And on the Somme, Hodgson would have necessarily been looking eastward a lot of the time to the enemy lines with sun setting behind him over Albert, colouring the chalk  -  WOW - I've just looked this up: substantial portions of Durham Cathedral nave is built of Caen limestone - the same stuff of the escarpments of the Somme! - perhaps not an altogether surprising source for the stone, given the cathedral's Norman origins; but which one that I imagine Hodgson might have recognised. In a funny sort of way, this makes the hill of Durham School and the hills of the Somme "familiar".

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From: mmcc...@ukonline.co.uk
To: ww1...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: William Noel Hodgson - Before Action

Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 13:03:25 +0000

[Margaret Crane]

What a brilliant link - it had never occurred to me to wonder what kind of stone was found on the Somme!

[David Hughes]

I'm not completely sure I'm right - perhaps the Somme is more specifically chalk - so I'm doing some more looking to check - but I do think the imaginative correspondence is worth remembering.  The loops of the Ancre flowing through the Somme region are not unlike the loops of the Wear near Durham: steep-sided, calcium [whether chalk or limestone] - and some parts industrial... it's a poignant fact about that war: the landscapes being fought-over were all so very familiar...
 
[talking of the Somme chalk, I read somewhere that the explosions of the mines were heard in London because the sound-vibrations were trasmitted through the relatively plastic rock rather than through air. The Geology of the War is much more important than is generally recognised - did you realise that one of the reasons the French needed to recapture their territory was that almost all their roadstone quarries were in German hands?- a loss which made it incredibly difficult to sustain an industrial economy with all the required communications... yes, I know it's off message, but these things do fascinate me.

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[David Hughes]

and here's another snippet: all the statues in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History are also of Caen stone...       actually, so is Buckingham Palace
 
 
and another... 
 

The Surface of the Marls of the Middle Chalk in the Somme Valley and the Neighbouring Districts of Northern France, and the Effect on the Hydrology

William Bernard Robinson King, O.B.E., M.A., F.G.S.
The folds of the Mesozoic and Tertiary rocks of Northern France have been studied by various geologists in the past, notably E. Hébert, M. Bertrand, J. Gosselet, L. Cayeux, G. F. Dollfus, and H. Parent.

Theoretical considerations regarding the relationship of the later folds to the older pre-existing folding have led some of these geologists to study this problem, while others have endeavoured to trace some connexion between the tectonic structure and the development of the river-systems. In these pages, however, I propose to set forth certain information derived from the records of the boreholes which were made by the British armies during the War, and to draw some conclusions regarding the relationship between the tectonic features and the hydrology.

During the War the geological work in connexion with water-supply fell into two main groups—(1) the endeavour to furnish details of the strata in the area occupied by the British armies, together with notes on their water-bearing capacity; and (2) the preparation of notes on areas over which an advance might take place.

In connexion with the first of these requirements, much useful information was obtained from the late Prof. J. Gosselet's works, particularly his maps of the contours of various horizons, which proved of great use in estimating the depth at which various strata occur.

The area under consideration (see map, Pl. III) consists fundamentally of Cretaceous deposits, but frequently has a superficial covering of Quaternary loams, Clay-with-Flints, and small outliers of the basal Tertiary clays and sands. From

 

[http://jgslegacy.lyellcollection.org/cgi/content/abstract/jgsleg;]

...

 
 


 

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From: mmcc...@ukonline.co.uk
To: ww1...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: William Noel Hodgson - Before Action

Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 11:09:00 +0000

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