Edith Nesbit |
Edith Nesbit, the
children’s author best known for her novel The
Railway Children, wrote stories that combine realism and hardship with fantasy
and magic. Few know that she also wrote
poems that communicate the emotional experiences of the First World War. One of those poems, “In Hospital,” opens in
springtime under the shadow of a hawthorn hedge.
In Celtic
folklore, the hawthorn is a magical tree that is sacred to the faeries. In May, the hawthorn’s thorny branches are
covered in white blooms, and the tree is often associated with courtship and
romance. And yet the flowers smell like decaying flesh (the chemical component –
trimethylamine – is the same), and it is considered unlucky to bring hawthorn branches
inside the house, as evidenced in the rhyme
Hawthorn
bloom and elder-flowers
Will fill a house with evil powers.
Will fill a house with evil powers.
Beautiful
flowers, sharp thorns, and the smell of death:
the hawthorn symbolizes the union of opposites.
In Hospital
Under the shadow
of a hawthorn brake,
Where bluebells draw the sky down to the wood,
Where, 'mid brown leaves, the primroses awake
And hidden violets smell of solitude;
Beneath green leaves bright-fluttered by the wing
Of fleeting, beautiful, immortal Spring,
I should have said, 'I love you,' and your eyes
Have said, 'I, too . . . ' The gods saw otherwise.
For this is winter, and the London streets
Are full of soldiers from that far, fierce fray
Where life knows death, and where poor glory meets
Full-face with shame, and weeps and turns away.
And in the broken, trampled foreign wood
Is horror, and the terrible scent of blood,
And love shines tremulous, like a drowning star,
Under the shadow of the wings of war.
Where bluebells draw the sky down to the wood,
Where, 'mid brown leaves, the primroses awake
And hidden violets smell of solitude;
Beneath green leaves bright-fluttered by the wing
Of fleeting, beautiful, immortal Spring,
I should have said, 'I love you,' and your eyes
Have said, 'I, too . . . ' The gods saw otherwise.
For this is winter, and the London streets
Are full of soldiers from that far, fierce fray
Where life knows death, and where poor glory meets
Full-face with shame, and weeps and turns away.
And in the broken, trampled foreign wood
Is horror, and the terrible scent of blood,
And love shines tremulous, like a drowning star,
Under the shadow of the wings of war.
--Edith Nesbit, published in the Westminster Gazette, 11 Dec 1915
The poem’s two
stanzas contrast the seasons of spring and winter to express how the war has
utterly changed not only the natural world, but the lives of both men and women
caught up in the bloody conflict.
In the opening
lines, the lovers meet under the shadow of a dense thicket, much like Sleeping
Beauty’s hedge, while bluebells, primroses, and violets push up through the
dead, brown leaves of the previous fall. The complexities of life and its
irreconcilable opposites are also reflected in the description of Spring
itself: both fleeting and immortal. Most importantly, the entire season of renewal
is now overshadowed by regret – promises never made, emotions never expressed –
what should have been.
In the second
stanza, London’s winter streets are thronged with soldiers headed to war, men
home on leave, and the injured who bear the visible wounds of battle – those
missing limbs and the men with disfiguring facial injuries. The war is a “far, fierce fray” – as different
and distant from the blossoming countryside woods as can be imagined. There are woods in the war zone, but these,
too, have been forever altered – “broken” and “trampled.” The forests of battle
are not carpeted with fragrant and delicate flowers, but rather with mangled
corpses: scenes of horror and the smell
of blood.
And where have
the wounded survivors been taken? The
poem is titled “In Hospital” and depicts the reunion of the springtime lovers in
the sterile atmosphere of a medical ward.
It is here that “poor glory meets/ Full-face with shame, and weeps and
turns away.” Perhaps the wounded soldier
is one of those known as “the men with the broken faces” – this would account
for the poem’s references to shame, weeping, and the averted gaze, as well as explaining
why only the man’s eyes can speak of his regret.
“In Hospital” is
where “love shines tremulous, like a drowning star.” The metaphor of the last lines holds out only
the faintest of hope for the future as we watch the light of love unsteadily
sinking beneath the weight of a shadow, while war continues to soar on the wings
of darkness.
William Kearsey after 1917 shell explosion |
William Kearsey, Australian soldier |
William Kearsey after surgery |
What a beautiful poem. The images, too, are haunting. Thank you for finding this and sharing with us.
ReplyDelete"And love shines tremulous, like a drowning star,
ReplyDeleteUnder the shadow of the wings of war" -- yes, hauntingly beautiful. Thanks so much for reading and commenting.
I work often in London and the marks of the Great War are everywhere from the great formal memorials to a small sign at Waterloo Station that records where a small cafe stood dishing out thousands of cups of tea to the troops. And also the famous theatres are still full - places where many soldiers record they took in a last happy musical show before their return to the war. The old German Embassy building where the declaration of war was taken in August 1914 is now unremarked offices with the grave of the German Ambassadors dog extraordinarily still in the small garden- So the shadow of the wings of war will never depart from the streets of London just as the spirit of the soldiers who thronged it and then passed on lingers still.
ReplyDeleteI love the way you link this poem with London's war memorials -- I won't look at them the same way again. As you've so eloquently said, the streets still are "full of soldiers from that far, fierce fray," memorialized in stone and bronze.
DeleteThank you so much for sharing this intriguing aspect of The Great War! I am mezmerised by the imagery,and perspective from the feminine, and masculine eye.
ReplyDelete