F. W. Harvey

“ To learn the secrets you must learn, ere you arise on Doomsday morn.
For you have set your ear to earth
To list the growing of the flowers:
And catch the strains of Death and Birth:
And take the honey that is stored by all the flitting bee-like hours.
And you must put to memory
The silver music of the stars
That raineth down so silently,
And all the mighty harmony scrolled on the sky in glittering bars.
The music that no man can make,
The colours that he cannot see,
These out of darkness you shall take
And nourish up your growing soul with manna of their mystery. ”

“ In truth: for better men are buried under,
And—tut, “what can’t be cured must be endured”!
But I am wild with hate, pray devil’s thunder
May fall on Death though heaven itself glow hot,
Hell-like, and stars be lighted stubble, and worlds
Like birds drop blinded by the bloody light! ”

“ Those who know and love “A Gloucestershire Lad” would resent any lengthy attempt to praise the quality of Lieutenant Harvey’s verses. Some of the poems from a German prison camp may reach a far higher standard of lyric excellence than any in the earlier volume. The two ballades on war and “The Bugler” grip one by the throat. But all the verses have a sweetness and beauty entirely their own.
The poems are all short—too short. Lieutenant Harvey sings like the wild birds of his own dear Gloucestershire because he cannot help doing so. He stops short—as they do—and like them begins again. ”

“ But it will be strange if such readers do not find better things than they expected. Transpose any other county of this land for Gloucestershire, or any other home for the tree-encircled house at Minsterworth, then they will learn what the best of England’s captive sons are thinking, and so take heart of grace from the true love-songs of a Gloucestershire soldier, written first and foremost for his mother. ”

“ In the water bright.
From the Severn river at daybreak come
Hundreds of happy fishermen home
With bags full of elvers: perhaps that’s why
We all love Lent,
Lean mean Lent,
Fishy old Lent,
When the elvers fry. ”

“ The thing that men have died to free.
Our English fields shall blossom red
In all the blood that has been shed,
By men whose guardians are we,
If we return.’”
That is perhaps the keynote of a book which the author has dedicated to all dead and living comrades who have loved England. ”

“ He sang of the strong labouring of stars that wheel in their courses, and of passionate Suns.... Songs of courage against destiny, of scorn against mean riches; songs of sorrow, and of dancing [80] joy; of childhood, old age, and life again after. But never a song sang he of his beloved. Therefore she laughed, and knew that he was still her slave.
THE WINDOW
Blinking at the sun, what things of horror come peering out of me!—what ages of beasts! O that God would look out of me upon His world—that I might be a window for the eyes of Christ!
BROTHERS
Are men only our brothers? ”

“ Walking in khaki through a trench he came,
When life was death, and wounded men and great shells screamed together:
I did not know his name.
But so white-faced and wan, we talked a little while together
Amongst dead men, and timbers black with flame.
“What would you do with life again,” asks he, “if one could give it?”
“No use to talk when life is done,” I say. ”

“ There globes which muffle in the naked light
Aside being cast, naked and unafraid,
Lovers may stand in one another’s sight.
Now since through fleshly glass Thy flame, O Love,
Shines clear, and nowhere else doth visibly move ”

“ Bishop Frodsham, preaching in Gloucester Cathedral, after visiting the Troops in France, quoted the following poem in a passage which admirably expresses the feelings of most of our fighting men.
“To suppose that these men enjoy the fighting would be sheer nonsense. The soldier does not want to go on killing and maiming Germans or Turks. He wants to get the dreadful war finished, so that he can get back to England again. But he wants the matter fought to a finish because he has seen in the villages and towns of France what German domination means. ”

“ Yet it would be difficult to imagine what the most stony-hearted German censor could resent in any one of Lieutenant Harvey’s poems, unless it might be a deep love for England and an overwhelming desire to be with his love again.
Many unfortunates who have had dear ones imprisoned at Gütersloh, where most of these poems were written, and at other centres, are looking forward eagerly to the publication of this little book. If they expect to read descriptions of the life of the camp, or reflections upon the conduct of German gaolers, they will be disappointed. ”

“ Perhaps (I do not know) you have learnt to hate yourself or to love a fellow-being.
[61]
10. FAITH
Why am I so many men?
It is because you have not Faith.
What is Faith?
Faith is a fire.
But how does a man come by it?
Perhaps God gives it him.
[62]
11. TIME—THE HORSE
Whither does Time trot us? And is moonlight brightening the harness buckles as when children play beneath the rugs, guessing “Where are we?” and father drives home—home—beneath the stars? ”

“ O you who have found mankind for a brother, be not content! You are brothers and sisters of angels and archangels: and your feet are on the glimmering roadways of unimaginable stars.
Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. ”

“ Against the dark glass shone like a flower the mouth of his beloved. But in vain he pressed lips of fire upon the panes—in vain!
“Then, since Love may not melt,” cried he, “shatter, O Death!”
God broke the window with His fist.
[56]
5. IN THE FIELD OF TIME
In the field of Time, at the end of the path of daisies, grow flaming poppies, taking the eye more readily than the flowers of gold and white.
But a man, looking at some he had plucked to wear, discovered (formed by the inside shape and hue of the petals) a black cross at the bottom of every scarlet cup, and cast them from him. ”

“ When elvers fry for breakfast with egg chopped small
And bacon from the side that’s hung upon the wall. [30]
When the dish is on the table how the children shout
“O, what funny fish,
Wormy squirmy fish,
Weeny white fish,
Our mother’s dishing out!”
Eels have a flavour (and a baddish one) of oil.
“When we have shuffled down their mortal coil,
What dreams may come!” what horrid nightmares neigh,
Gallop or squat,
Trample or trot,
Vanishing not
Till break of day!
“Never start nothing,” says the motto in our pub:
“It might lead to summat”: that’s (as Shakespeare said) the rub! ”

“ We are proud of the courage and the gaiety these little papers show. We laugh at their quips and jokes: then suddenly we find that the corners of our mouths are quivering [ix] and the tears are gathering in our eyes. We see that the boys are thinking about England below their gaiety. One young poet lifts the veil in this exquisite little rondeau—
“‘If we return, will England be
Just England still to you and me—
The place where we must earn our bread? ”

“ Winchcombe—poor pagan queen—doth lack a throne.
Ciceter keeps her soul, but she alone:
For Tewkesbury’s soul is in a pewter-pot,
And Cheltenham never had one of her own.
Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!
[73]
L’Envoy
Prince, you have travelled far and wide, and seen
Much nicer towns than these? “All Tommy rot!”
(“Your Royal Highness surely jests,” I mean.)
Old Gloucester reigns the king of all the lot!
[74] LUCKY
Lucky to live,
Lucky again
To have met and marched
With the finest men
(So I believe)
Earth ever bred
Since heaven was arched....
But they are dead. ”

“ Lance-Corporal Harvey pursued, felling one of the retreating Germans with a bludgeon. He seized him, but finding his revolver empty and the enemy having opened fire, he was called back by Corporal Knight, and the prisoner escaped. Three Germans were killed and their rifles and a Mauser pistol were brought in. The patrol had no loss.”
[viii] The poems are written by a soldier and reflect a soldier’s outlook. Mud, blood and khaki are rather conspicuously absent. They are, in fact, the last things a soldier wishes to think or talk about.
What he does think of is his home. ”

“ But comparing risks and wages,—I think they all will say
That the maximum of danger means the minimum of pay.
There are men who make munitions—and seventy bob a week;
They never see a lousy trench nor hear a big shell shriek ”

“ This is not to say that people aren’t great fools for preferring law to literature. It is rather to imply that a poet who can do both is a fool if he does not.
I am not a fool.
Farewell!
F. W. H.
[6] ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The author desires to acknowledge gratefully permissions to reprint certain of these poems granted by the editors of The Spectator, The Athenæum, The London Mercury, The Nation, The Woman’s Leader, The Gloucestershire Chronicle and The Gloucestershire Journal. ”

“ WHO LIE DEAD IN FOREIGN FIELDS
FOR LOVE OF ENGLAND,
OR WHO LIVE TO PROSECUTE THE WAR
FOR ANOTHER ENGLAND
[vii] PREFACE
Most of these poems were written at the Front, and appeared in the Fifth Gloucester Gazette—the first paper ever published from the trenches. ”

“ Peopled with children-haunted pines
Murmuring fairy-tales.
[1] First version was published in Ducks, and other Verses, 1919.
[66] THE LIFE THAT’S UNDER THE GROUND
It’s funny to think of the life that’s under the ground. ”

“ Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam;
An’ varmer be merry, an’ me an’ Jack
Sing Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam.
There’s wuts for the horses and hay for the cow—
Riddle cum Ruddle, the harvest’s whoam ”

“ DUCKS, AND OTHER VERSES.
COMRADES IN CAPTIVITY: A Record
of Life in Seven German Prisons.
Illustrated by C. E. B. Bernard.
Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd.
FAREWELL
BY
F. W. HARVEY
AUTHOR OF “A GLOUCESTERSHIRE LAD”
“GLOUCESTERSHIRE FRIENDS”
ETC., ETC.
LONDON
SIDGWICK & JACKSON, LTD.
1921
[5] PREFACE
In spite of all the soulful utterances of people comfortably off, economic independence remains the first condition of happiness. ”