Youth Mourning, George Clausen |
From
its opening image of “the aching womb of night,” exhaustion and pain struggle
for breath throughout "The Mourners," a short poem by Canadian poet Robert Service. The night struggles to
give birth, but instead miscarries only the stillborn dead, the broken men who are
scattered across the “foul, corpse-cluttered plain” of No Man’s Land.
The
Mourners by Robert Service
I
look into the aching womb of night;
I look across the mist that masks the dead;
The
moon is tired and gives but little light,
The stars have gone to bed.
The
earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain;
A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree;
I do
not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain,
The dead I do not see.
The
slain I would not see... and so I
lift
My eyes from out the shambles where they
lie;
When
lo! a million woman-faces drift
Like pale leaves through the sky.
The
cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears;
But some are tearless, with wild eyes that
stare
Into
the shadow of the coming years
Of fathomless despair.
And some are rich, some poor beyond belief;
Yet
all are strangely like, set in the mould
Of everlasting grief.
They
fill the vast of Heaven, face on face;
And then I see one weeping with the rest,
Whose
eyes beseech me for a moment's space....
Oh eyes I love the best!
Nay,
I but dream. The sky is all forlorn,
And there's the plain of battle writhing
red:
God
pity them, the women-folk who mourn!
How happy are the dead!
In sympathy with those fighting in the trenches, the moon, the earth, and
the wind also are “tired,” “sick,” and “whimper” at the death and suffering hidden
in the mist and blackness. The turn of the poem occurs when a vision breaks
across the night sky. Looking
heavenward, the voice of the poem sees “a million women-faces drift/Like pale
leaves through the sky.” However, this
is not an angelic host singing with joy, but instead a throng of women, young and old, tear-stained and dry-eyed, connected only by their “everlasting grief”
and “fathomless despair” as they stare from the depths of night “into the shadow
of the coming years.”
The
women, united in mourning, appear to do something that the man speaking in the poem cannot: they look at the dead, while he repeats three
times, in an increasingly powerful incantation, his inability and unwillingness
to do so: “I do not see the foul,
corpse-cluttered plain,/The dead I do not see./The slain I would not see.”
Robert
Service was forty-one when war broke out: he tried to enlist in the
Canadian army, but was turned down for varicose veins. Wanting to
contribute to the war effort, Service became a war correspondent for Canadian
newspapers while serving as an ambulance driver and stretcher bearer. In
one of his news accounts of the war, Service wrote, “The skin of [the burned
soldier] is a bluish colour and cracked open in ridges. I am sorry I saw
him. After this, when they put the things that once were men into my car
I will turn away my head” (quoted in Poetry of the First World War by
Tim Kendall).
“I
will turn away my head” – for a man at the front to look at the dead is to
admit that he may well be the next to be cut to pieces by artillery fire or
caught on the barbed wire. The voice of the poem recognizes this and
foresees his own death when he sees “weeping with the rest,” the eyes of the
woman he loves “the best.” The men and women who live to see those whom they love
die are forever changed and scarred. Only
the dead, released from the horrors of war and the desolation of mourning are
happy.
“I will not turn away my head”
ReplyDeleteAs you write - Robert Service knew what it was to mourn.
As did D.H. Lawrence. Your post reminds me of Lawrence's essay "With the Guns" published in the Manchester Guardian in August 1914.
He knew before the war began that it would be unthinkable:
"It is a war of artillery, a war of machines, and men no more than the subjective material of the machine. It is so unnatural as to be unthinkable.
Yet we must think of it."
It was unthinkable then.
It is unthinkable now. But we must think of it""
Josie, I love it when poems and essays speak to one another; thank you so much for sharing the information and excerpts from D.H. Lawrence's essay. I didn't know of it -- but then again, I think that Lawrence and his writings related to the First World War are sadly overlooked (there are several exceptionally powerful poems he wrote in response to the war).
ReplyDeleteThis is such a heartfelt poem. It makes my heart feel so sad for my own grandparents and especially my paternal grandfather who lost his brother in WW I in action, August 11, 1916 and who'd left England as a younger married man and enlisted as a Canadian soldier for WW I at age 37. He is now buried in Belgium near Ypres. I realize none of my family have ever visited the grave. It is my hope after doing much research into his death, to one day stand at his grave and honour his sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteI've been to Ypres many times and will go many more. If you would like me to look him up give me a shout .
DeleteLt Albert Service died 18.8.16 and buried at Railway Dugouts Cemetery near Ypres
ReplyDeleteA grave I've always wanted to visit. Thanks for this information, Ian.
ReplyDelete