Well how do you do, Private William McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
And I’ll rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I’ve been walking all day long, and I’m nearly done…
—Eric Bogle, “No Man’s Land”
remembrancesunday
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you’ll remember. For you need not so…
—Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895–1915)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47427/when-you-see-millions-of-the-mouthless-dead
#RemembranceSunday #Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW1
Past life, past tears, far past the grave,
The tryst is set for me,
Since, for our all, your all you gave
On the slopes of Picardy…
—Violet Jacob, “To A.H.J.”
Violet Jacob’s only son, Harry, was killed at the Battle of the Somme on 16 July 1916, aged 20
https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/502598/arthur-henry-augustus-jacob/
#RemembranceSunday #Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW1
Chan fhaca mi Lannes aig Ratasbon
no MacGillFhinnein aig Allt Èire
no Gill-Ìosa aig Cùil Lodair,
ach chunnaic mi Sasannach san Èipheit.
(I did not see Lannes at Ratisbon
nor MacLennan at Auldearn
nor Gillies MacBain at Culloden,
but I saw an Englishman in Egypt.)
—Somhairle MacGill-Eain (Sorley MacLean), “Curaidhean” (“Heroes”)
Sorley MacLean was severely wounded at El Alamein, 1942
#RemembranceSunday #Scottish #literature #Gaelic #Gaidhlig #poem #poetry #warpoetry #WW2
He lacks the ordnance of words.
A self-portrait shows
stitches where his mouth should be;
eyes like empty casings.
He left a part of himself in the desert,
this ultra-Marine…
—Sandra Ireland, “Ultramarine”
published in New Writing Scotland 36 (2018)
#RemembranceSunday #Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #trauma
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you’ll remember. For you need not so…
—Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895–1915)
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47427/when-you-see-millions-of-the-mouthless-dead
#Scottish #literature #RemembranceSunday #poem #poetry #warpoetry #warpoem #WW1
Every bullet has its billet;
Many bullets more than one:
God! Perhaps I killed a mother
When I killed a mother’s son.
—Joseph Lee, “The Bullet”
Poet & journalist Joseph Lee – Dundee’s “fighter writer” – joined the Black Watch in 1914, & survived WW1
https://youtube.com/watch?v=pWpTAFJOg1M
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #RemembranceSunday #warpoem #warpoetry #WW1
Well how do you do, Private William McBride?
Do you mind if I sit here down by your graveside?
And I’ll rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I’ve been walking all day long, and I’m nearly done…
—Eric Bogle, “No Man’s Land”
#Scottish #literature #song #folksong #RemembranceSunday #WW1 #FirstWorldWar
“It is one thing to make sacrifices; it is quite another thing to become the victim of a kind of national amnesia”
—Jackie Kay on Arthur Roberts (1897–1982), of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers & Royal Scots Fusiliers
#Scottish #Scotland #WW1 #FirstWorldWar #history #BlackHistory #ArthurRoberts #RemembranceSunday
He lacks the ordnance of words.
A self-portrait shows
stitches where his mouth should be;
eyes like empty casings.
He left a part of himself in the desert,
this ultra-Marine…
—Sandra Ireland, “Ultramarine”
published in New Writing Scotland 36 (2018)
To Marykirk ye’ll set ye forth.
An’ whustle as ye step alang,
An’ aye the Grampians i’ the North
Are glow’rin’ on ye as ye gang.
By Martin’s Den, through beech an’ birk,
A breith comes soughin’, sweet an’ strang,
Alang the road to Marykirk…
—Violet Jacob, “The Road to Marykirk”
Violet Jacob’s only child, Harry, died aged just 20 at the Battle of the Somme, on 16 July 1916.
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #womenwriters #warpoem #warpoetry #WW1 #RemembranceSunday
