Frances Cornford |
How does one make sense of the death of a friend in
war? Frances Cornford shaped her pain
into poetry. Cornford was the granddaughter of Charles Darwin and had written
poems from a young age. She was
twenty-eight when war broke out in August of 1914 and twenty-nine when she
received news of the death of her friend Ferenc Békássy.
A Hungarian
scholar and poet who had entered Cambridge in 1911, Békássy left England and
his Cambridge friends to join the Austro-Hungarian army soon after war was
declared. In a letter dated May 1915, shortly before riding to the Eastern
Front, Békássy wrote, “Do you know I think there’s a difference
between poets (who write poetry) and other people, that poets take hold of the
feelings they have and won’t let go; and other people let feelings have their
natural effects and so don’t write poems.”*
Frances Cornford’s poem "Féri Bekassy" was originally titled simply “Féri Dead
1915.”**
We, who must grow old and staid,
In our hearts like flowers keep
Love for you until we sleep.
You the brave, and you the young
You of a thousand songs unsung,
Burning brain, and ardent word,
You the lovely and absurd.
Say, on that Galician plain,
Are you arguing again?
Does a trench or ruined tree
Hear your – ‘O, I don’t
agree!’
We, who must grow staid and old,
Full of caution, worn and cold,
In our hearts, like flowers keep
Your image, till we also sleep.
In the introduction to Cornford’s Selected Poems, Jane Dowson notes that readers may miss the depths
of Cornford’s poetry as they “take the simplicity at face value and miss the
undertow,” for nearly all of Cornford’s work is infused with a “sense of the
impermanence of all human relationships” (xv-xvi). This poem is simple in its communication of loss
and waste, the “thousand songs unsung,” but it touches upon more complex
emotions in refusing to idolize the dead. It offers a gentle mockery of Békássy's incautious and ardent intensity and his penchant for philosophical argument.
These were the lovely absurdities that made him a dear friend; he is remembered
as a man and not as an idealized warrior.
In May of 1915, Békássy wrote what would be his last letter to Noel Olivier, a young woman
he had courted: “I am going to the front
in five days’ time, and am already feeling quite detached from everything so
that nothing interests me very much and the only vivid remembrances are: people....
I’m going gladly, I know it’s very worth taking the risk, and I am sure to get
something good out of the war unless I die in it. It’s part of “the good life” just now, that I
should go: and the sooner one gives up the idea that the world can be made
better than it is, the better. I daresay one can make it happier, but then
happiness isn’t the main point, is it?”*
Békássy was killed in action four days after
arriving at the Eastern Front on June 22, 1915. His war poem “1914” can be read on an earlier post on this blog.
Frances Cornford's grave, Cambridge |
* Letter excerpted from George Gömöri’s “Ferenc Békássy, Rupert Brooke, and Noel Olivier,” The Hungarian Quarterly, vol. 199, pp. 105-113.
**Originally published in Different Days (1928), the poem was slightly revised, and the
version shared in this post is from Cornford’s Collected Poems (1954).
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteThe poem shows a distinct resemblance with the quatrain taken from Laurence Binyon's For the Fallen, which is used as the text to be recited in the daily exhortation during the Last Post at the Menin Gate in Ypres (8 p.m.).
ReplyDeleteHere is how it goes:
"They will grow not old as we that are left grow old
Age shall not weary them
nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."
Come rain or shine, that Last Post never ceases to impress and move the attendants. However, the "lovely and absurd" in the poem you quote shows the reverse coin to the heroic one.
Wonderful connection with Binyon's poem, Chris!
Deletedid she love him? He seems the sort of man that was loved by everyone he met. we have all met such lovely absurd people and marveled at them
ReplyDeleteLovely and absurd -- she cherished his friendship.
Delete"I daresay one can make it (the world) happier, but then happiness isn’t the main point, is it?”
ReplyDeleteGutting comment, isn't it?
Delete