Killed May 13, 1915 |
A captain in the Royal Horse
Guards, Colwyn Philipps arrived in the Ypres Salient in early November of 1914. Less than six months later, at the age of 26,
he was killed in an attack on German lines.
He has no known grave: his name is one of the 54,896 listed on the Menin
Gate memorial.
When his belongings were sent home to his mother in
Wales, the poem "Release" was found among his possessions.
Release by Colwyn
Philipps
(Found
in his note-book when his kit came home)
There
is a healing magic in the night,
The breeze blows cleaner than it did by day,
Forgot the fever of the fuller light,
And sorrow sinks insensibly away
As if some saint a cool white hand did lay
Upon the brow, and calm the restless brain.
The moon looks down with pale unpassioned ray -
Sufficient for the hour is its pain.
Be still and feel the night that hides away earth's stain.
Be still and loose the sense of God in you,
Be still and send your soul into the all,
The vasty distance where the stars shine blue,
No longer antlike on the earth to crawl.
Released from time and sense of great or small,
Float on the pinions of the Night-Queen's wings;
Soar till the swift inevitable fall
Will drag you back into all the world's small things;
Yet for an hour be one with all escaped things.
The breeze blows cleaner than it did by day,
Forgot the fever of the fuller light,
And sorrow sinks insensibly away
As if some saint a cool white hand did lay
Upon the brow, and calm the restless brain.
The moon looks down with pale unpassioned ray -
Sufficient for the hour is its pain.
Be still and feel the night that hides away earth's stain.
Be still and loose the sense of God in you,
Be still and send your soul into the all,
The vasty distance where the stars shine blue,
No longer antlike on the earth to crawl.
Released from time and sense of great or small,
Float on the pinions of the Night-Queen's wings;
Soar till the swift inevitable fall
Will drag you back into all the world's small things;
Yet for an hour be one with all escaped things.
It
is easy to imagine this man who attempts to forget "the fever of
the fuller light" as he gazes into the night sky and searches for peace for his "restless
brain." The poem suggests that the
night is able to wash this man from the filth of war with its "cleaner"
breezes and the darkness that hides "earth's stain." The night offers the gift of lightness, a
time and space when not only can burdens be dropped, but the soul itself can
rise above the ant-like, crawling, underground existence of the trenches and join
"the vasty distance where the stars shine blue" to be
"one with all escaped things."
The Thinker on the Butte de Warlencourt, William Orpen |
As if in an attempt at self-hypnosis, three times the poem
chants the words "Be still," recalling Psalm 46 and its meditation on
God and war: "He makes wars cease
to the end of the earth;/he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;/he
burns the chariots with fire./Be still, and know that I am God.”
Staring up at the distant stars, for "an hour"
this man experiences "a healing magic" and a respite from the
psychological traumas that go undiagnosed for so many who must simply push on
and continue to fight. Then comes the
"swift inevitable fall." As certain as the dropping of shells, the
return to grim reality drags him back "into all the world's small
things": the pettiness of European politics, the trivial gains made by the sacrifice of repeated
"over the top" attacks, and the insignificance of individual lives.
Several months before his death, Philipps wrote home
to his mother and described an early battle experience: "As we went through the first village,
we got heavily shelled by the famous Black Marias; they make a noise just like
an express train and burst like a clap of thunder, you hear them coming for ten
seconds before they burst. It was very
unpleasant, and you need to keep a hold on yourself to prevent ducking – most of
the men duck."
Phillips'
posthumously published book of poetry was described by the Welsh Outlook in May 1916 as "a memorial to a very gallant
gentleman" in whose verse "at times he lifts the veil and suffers us to catch glimpses of his inner self, face to
face with life's realities." His
poem "Release" also serves as a memorial to all who have experienced
the traumas of war, come"face to face with life's realities," and soldiered on.
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