"Summer
& trenches don't go together somehow," Roland Leighton wrote to his
sweetheart, Vera Brittain in April 1915.
Later
that month, Roland wrote to Vera and described a discovery he'd made while
walking in Ploegsteert Wood (known to the Tommies as "Plug Street
Wood"). Roland had found "the body
of a dead British soldier hidden in the undergrowth a few yards from the
path. He must have been shot there
during the wood-fighting in the early part of the War. The body had sunk down into the marshy
ground so that only the tops of the boots stuck up above the soil. His cap
& equipment beside him were half-buried and rotting away." Leighton ordered that the body be covered
with dirt, "to make one grave more among the many in the wood" (Chronicle of Youth, 25 April 1915).
The
next day, Roland started a poem, and while on leave that August (during which
time he and Vera became engaged), he showed Vera the finished villanelle that he had
titled and dated: "Violets," April 25, 1915. Her journal records, "I remembered
how on that day he had written me a letter – he was then in Ploegsteert Wood—enclosing
some violets from the top of his dug-out which he said he had just picked for
me."
Villanelle
by Roland
Leighton
From the film Testament of Youth |
Violets
from Plug Street Wood,
Sweet, I send you oversea.
(It is strange they should be blue,
Blue, when his soaked blood was red,
For they grew around his head:
It is strange they should be blue.)
Sweet, I send you oversea.
(It is strange they should be blue,
Blue, when his soaked blood was red,
For they grew around his head:
It is strange they should be blue.)
Violets
from Plug Street Wood
Think what they have meant to me--
Life and Hope and Love & You
(And you did not see them grow
Where his mangled body lay
Hiding horror from the day;
Sweetest it was better so.)
Life and Hope and Love & You
(And you did not see them grow
Where his mangled body lay
Hiding horror from the day;
Sweetest it was better so.)
Violets
from oversea,
To your dear, far, forgetting land
These I send in memory,
Knowing You will understand.
To your dear, far, forgetting land
These I send in memory,
Knowing You will understand.
The
poignancy of the poem lies in the tension between two voices: a man writing to
his sweetheart in a "dear, far, forgetting land," and a soldier
talking to himself, trying to puzzle out how the horrors of war can coexist
with simple flowers that recall "Life and Hope and Love and You" (this is the voice that speaks in the parenthetical comments).
The
soaked blood and mangled body of the dead man are literally entwined with the violets
that are gathered for the "Sweetest" and sent to her in memory. But in memory of what? Do the violets recall the golden age of
innocence and romance before the war? Or
are they sent in memory of the dead man whose body has lain forgotten for
months? There is a bittersweet irony in
the poem's last line as it vows she "will understand." He knows she cannot fully grasp what he faces, because his darling "did not see" where the violets grew, hiding the
horror of the neglected corpse. And yet the soldier is grateful for her ignorance: "Sweetest, it was better so."
By
August of 1915, Roland was having difficulties in finding beauty anywhere on
the Western Front. He wrote to Vera,
"I used to talk of the Beauty of War; but it is only War in the abstract
that is beautiful. Modern warfare is
merely a trade." In September, he was even more direct about his altered opinion of the war: "Let him who thinks
that War is a glorious golden thing…let him look at a little pile of sodden
grey rags that cover half a skull and a shin bone and what might have been Its
ribs, or at this skeleton lying on its side, resting half-crouching as it fell,
supported on one arm, perfect but that it is headless, and with the tattered
clothing still draped around it; and let him realise how grand & glorious a
thing it is to have distilled all Youth and Joy and Life into a foetid heap of
hideous putrescence. Who is there who has known and seen who can say that
Victory is worth the death of even one of these?"
Roland and Vera were to have been married during his Christmas leave that began December 24th, but while waiting expectantly for his arrival, she received a telephone call informing her that
Roland had died of wounds on December 23rd. He was buried in France in the Louvencourt cemetery. The inscription on his headstone reads, "Goodnight
though life and all take flight – Never goodbye." The lines are a reference to a W.E. Henley
poem that Roland had shared with Vera in a letter in May of 1915, describing
how as he crossed a field in the starlight, a little poem of W.E. Henley's
came into his head:
Goodnight,
sweet friend, goodnight!
Till life & all take flight
Never goodbye.
He again
alluded to the poem as he was returning to the Western Front after his August
leave, sending Vera a telegram that read "Till we may live our roseate poem
through," and a brief letter that read, "Nearly at Folkestone
now. I am trying not to think of it, but
the thought will come. Oh damn, I know
it—
Goodnight, sweet friend, goodnight!
Till life & all take flight
Never goodbye."
Vera
Brittain visited Roland Leighton's grave twice, once in 1921, and again in
1933. I'd like to think that she left
violets.
Roland Leighton, Louvencourt cemetery |
Connie, thanks for this post. I was hoping you would include some poetry - and biography - of Roland Leighton. As you may recall, our WWI Meetup group saw "Testament of Youth" earlier this month. I can't say we enjoyed it, exactly, as it's such a grim story. But the consensus was that the film was well done, and we were glad to have the opportunity to see it. That particular scene in the film was for me one of the most moving, most memorable. And it's an interesting synchronicity that I have just finished that part of the story as I currently re-read "Testament of Youth".
ReplyDeleteRoland's other poem to Vera, Hédauville, I find even more poignant and heartwrenching, as it foreshadows his own death and his hopes for Vera. I've not been able to read/memorize poetry as I used to, although it's a practice I hope to re-establish. But the final lines from Hédauville have stayed with me since the first time I heard them over 20 years ago;
"(And daisies are truer than passion-flowers)
It will be better so."
Jeannine
Remembering the First World War
Meetup
Thanks, Jeannine! I got to see "Testament of Youth" while it was showing at the Harris and also found it to be a memorable and poignant film. I'm hoping to post on "Hedauville" sometime before the centenary of the Armistice -- it is a beautiful poem and one well worth committing to memory!
ReplyDeleteRead Vera's heart-rending private diary entitled Letters from a Lost Generation (ed. Alan Bishop & Mark Bostridge). It was the embryonic Testament of Youth. You can find my review on Amazon.co.uk.
ReplyDeleteThanks for another great recommendation, Chris. Which review did you author on Amazon.co.uk? I'd love to read more specifics on your response to the book.
DeleteIncidentally (& much to my surprise), Amazon printed two which I wrote: one dated Oct. 1st, 2000, the other Nov. 3rd.
DeleteThanks for the dates and for writing two reviews! Your reviews are insightful and very helpful for anyone wanting to know more about Vera Brittian and the psychological effects of the war.
DeleteAs it is, Roland wrote yet another poem entitled Ploegsteert (= Plug Street). It starts as follows:
ReplyDelete'Love have I known, and dawn and gold of day-time,
And winds and songs and all the joys that are
Known once, and as a child that tires with play-time
Leaped from them to the elemental dust of War."
The intimate scenery of Plugstreet Wood and the cemeteries tucked within it are of an indescribable beauty.
Whenever I am in the region (the Franco-Belgian border) I like to go there and meditate a while.
Thanks so VERY much for sharing this poem, Chris -- and for inspiring me to make it a priority to visit Plugstreet Wood on our next visit to the Western Front.
DeleteSomething about the story of Very Brittain and Roland Leighton seem to capture so much about WW1 and how it was experienced by so many people.
ReplyDeleteThank you Connie, I visit Roland's grave often and will be there on Remembrance day next week. We usually read one of his poems at the graveside. had the honour 4 years ago of meeting Vera Britains daughter Shirley Williams we had a short conversation about Vera and my gran who was a VAD along side of her in the Great War.
ReplyDeleteHi sue, are you by any chance from England by way of Lancashire or Manchester? My great grandfather was Fredrick Robinson married to Annie Broughton. Is interested please reply. Much thanks
DeleteWhat special work you're doing in remembering the VADs, Sue. Thanks for reading and replying, and thanks for visiting Roland's grave next week.
ReplyDeleteI’ve just finished the testament of youth and it has touched me deeply. Vera’s poem “Perhaps “ is so moving as I listen to it on u tube. Rolands poems express so much love and expression that you can feel his anxiety. My grandfather served in the Great War and was shell shocked and gassed but did survive and married my grandmother after the war. They were childhood sweethearts since 12. I still have some letters that he sent her from the front. I do compare them to Vera and Roland. It was a different time then, but what a time it was. Thanks for reading,
ReplyDeleteSincerely,
John
Thanks, John, for reading and for sharing your grandparents' story. It must be very special to have their letters.
DeleteRemembering Roland's death 104 years ago today. What particular torture was the ghastliness of the Great War to our poets. Feeling obliged to process and express the horror in writing - to catch the essence of it. Like many I have made the pilgrimage to his grave - the still solid permanence of it when considered with his writing is rather shocking.
ReplyDeleteLovely stories and poems from a tragic time in the 20th century. Great blog. Thanks! Christopher T. George @CThompsonGeorge
ReplyDelete