Over one-hundred
years ago, on December 23rd, 1914, the British weekly periodical Punch published
a Christmas poem for a nation at war. The anonymous poet dreamed of a return to happier
times, pleading, “Take back the blood-stained year again, / Give us the
Christmas that we know!”
On Earth --
Peace
Judge of the
passionate hearts of men,
God of the
wintry wind and snow,
Take back the
blood-stained year again,
Give us the
Christmas that we know!
No stir of wings
sweeps softly by;
Beneath the wild
and wintry sky
No shepherds
watch their flocks tonight.
In the dull
thunder of the wind
We hear the
cruel guns afar,
But in the
glowering heavens we find
No guiding,
solitary star.
But lo! on this
our Lord's birthday,
Lit by the glory
whence she came,
Peace, like a
warrior, stands at bay,
A swift,
defiant, living flame!
Full-armed she
stands in shining mail,
Erect, serene,
unfaltering still,
Shod with a
strength that cannot fail,
Strong with a
fierce o'ermastering will.
Where shattered
homes and ruins be
She fights
through dark and desperate days;
Beside the
watchers on the sea
She guards the
Channel's narrow ways.
Through iron
hail and shattering shell,
Where the dull
earth is stained with red,
Fearless she
fronts the gates of Hell
And shields the
unforgotten dead.
So stands she,
with her all at stake,
And battles for
her own dear life,
That by one
victory she may make
For evermore an
end of strife.
In this world at
war, the comforting figures of the Nativity are nowhere to be found. The
angels are silent, the shepherds are absent, and the guiding star fails to
appear in the bitterly cold night sky. Cyril Winterbotham in “A
Christmas Prayer from the Trenches” also described the quiet despair of men
crouched in the wet, snowy trenches of the Western Front: “In our dark sky no
angels sing….Our gifts must bullets be.”
Yet in the poem
a vision appears, breaking through the glowering heavens. The
defiant figure of Peace stands amidst the shattered ruins, a flaming crusader
clad in shining armour. Like Joan of Arc, this woman warrior “fights through
dark and desperate days.” Calm and confident in the midst of “iron hail and
shattering shell,” Peace fiercely protects the unforgotten dead. But her cause
is more noble than any military objective: she fights for everyone, for she aims
to end all wars.
This poem that
begins with a wistful longing for happier Christmases of the past concludes
with a dream of the most extravagant of gifts: world peace forever. To modern
readers, the thought of eternal peace on earth is likely to seem as miraculous
as that of the virgin birth. What the readers of Punch could
not know was that the war that was to have been over by Christmas of 1914 would
continue its bloody course for nearly another four years, costing over nine
million lives. By November of 1918, when Peace finally won the day,
her arrival seemed nothing short of miraculous. It was a peace that did
not last.
Although the
poem was published anonymously in Punch, an on-line source
recently asserted that it was written by a British officer who was present at
the 1914 Christmas Truce. The claim, however, is unverified, and as
“On Earth—Peace” was published in London on December 23rd –
before the
Christmas Truce occurred – this seems unlikely. A more probable
author is the Canadian poet of the Laurentians, F.G. Scott, who volunteered in
August of 1914 for overseas service as a military chaplain. Scott is named as
the author of the poem by Kate Luard in her memoir Diary of a Nursing
Sister on the Western Front, published in 1915. Luard’s diary provides
a sobering glimpse of Christmas on the Western Front:
Xmas Eve,
1914_-- And no fire and no chauffage [heating], and cotton frocks; funny life,
isn't it? And the men are crouching in a foot of water in the trenches and
thinking of "'ome, 'long o' Mother," --British, Germans, French, and
Russians ….
Xmas Day,
1914 -- And this is Christmas, and the world is supposed to be civilised. They
came in from the trenches to-day with blue faces and chattering teeth, and it
was all one could do to get them warm and fed.
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