Vera Brittain

“ AUGUST 1914
God said, “Men have forgotten Me;
The souls that sleep shall wake again,
And blinded eyes must learn to see.”
So since redemption comes through pain
He smote the earth with chastening rod,
And brought Destruction’s lurid reign;
But where His desolation trod
The people in their agony
Despairing cried, “There is no God.”
Somerville College,
Oxford.
{16}
ST. PANCRAS STATION, AUGUST 1915
One long, sweet kiss pressed close upon my lips,
One moment’s rest on your swift-beating heart,
And all was over, for the hour had come
For us to part. ”

“ Women who suffer and women who die?
Who shall avenge us for anguish unnamable,
Rivers of scarlet and crosses of grey,
Terror of night-time and blood-lust untamable,
Hate without pity where broken we lay? ”

“ But, in spite of the pointing finger of Kipling, most of us clung desperately to the verse that had its sole origin in imaginative emotion until the blaze of war in the world illumined our souls and showed all of us that out of our simplest practical work can be struck sparks of real and great and rare divine fire.
All the poems in this little book are the outcome of things very deeply felt. It is very difficult for me to write of them because where there is pain uttered in them, it has almost always been my pain as well as the author’s. ”

“ In such circumstances, it is difficult to achieve any literary ornamentation and least of all that particular kind of simpleness which is the highest form of finished art. In the case of several of the poems, both these qualities have been achieved; yet, because of the difficulties, I make an appeal for considerateness and tender sympathy in judging these first shy flowers of the heart and mind of a young girl who has worked unceasingly and self-forgettingly for the good of others since the days of stress began, and who in her personal destiny has suffered as, I hope, very few have suffered. ”

“ And forms, once mangled, into rapture leap,
Forgetful of their pain.{46}
But still the stars above the camp shine on,
Giving no answer for our sorrow’s ease,
And one more day with the Last Post has gone
Dying upon the breeze. ”

“ For I was young and loved, and it was May. ”

“ One or two of the sonnets condense the expression of losses that have meant a life’s upheaval. One or two, again, are practically a concrete record of simple human things observed and suffered and of duty strenuously done. ”

“ But this practical quality, while it has so much that makes it rich and valuable, has also the one conspicuous disadvantage that the{11} work is often done under conditions of strain and turmoil that tell against perfection of method. ”