Poems

[Homme]

I'm looking for any poems associated with McRae's Battallion?

 

Was on the Hearts War Memorial site but i can't find any.

 

Can anyone help? Maybe copy and paste them on to this thread if there are any?

 

Thanks in advance.

[redm]

I'm afraid I wouldn't know where to start with that but I'm sure that Jack Alexander would be more than happy to respond to a PM.

 

http://www.hmfckickback.co.uk/member.php?u=1760

[ando]

I'm looking for any poems associated with McRae's Battallion?

 

Was on the Hearts War Memorial site but i can't find any.

 

Can anyone help? Maybe copy and paste them on to this thread if there are any?

 

Thanks in advance.

 

TO THE MEN WHO LIE UNDER

THE FIELDS OF THE SOMME

FEAR NOT

WHEN THE WHISTLE BLOWS

IT CALLS NOT TO WAR

BUT FITBA THE GAME

THE MEN OF THE SPORTING BATTALION

[Goodmorningmrfisherman]

Remember sunday is not just about macraes loads others lost life and may god bless them all.

[cosanostra]

This poem seems relevent when remembering those who have gone. Not specific to the Battallion but I rather like it. Heard it at a funeral once and I doubt i'll ever forget it.

 

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow,

I am the diamond glints on the snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

I am the gentle autumn?s rain.

When you awaken in the morning?s hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,

I am not there, I did not die?.

 

Mary Frye

[piltonjambo]

Not particularly for McCraes but ...

 

For The Fallen

 

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,

Britain mourns for her dead across the sea.

Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,

Fallen in the cause of the free.

 

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal

Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,

There is music in the midst of desolation

And a glory that shines upon our tears.

 

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;

They fell with their faces to the foe.

 

They shall not grow 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.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;

They sleep beyond England?s foam.

 

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own land they are known

As the stars are known to the Night;

 

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,

Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;

As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

[Jaap's Sigh]

Not about the battallion, but a well known poem by Wilfred Owen who was a British soldier (and a writer) serving in WW1. Graphic stuff.

 

 

Wilfred Owen

Dulce Et Decorum Est

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

 

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

 

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

 

 

 

 

The last line." Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori means `It is a sweet and noble thing to die for one's country`.

[Deevers]

If you're looking for something with a "Scottish" slant to it - try the works of Ewart Alan MacKintosh - an officer in the Seathforth Highlanders who was killed at Cambrai in November 1917 - but who also fought on the Somme with the 5th battallion of that regiment in July 1916. His poems are very poignant

[Deevers]

Not about the battallion, but a well known poem by Wilfred Owen who was a British soldier (and a writer) serving in WW1. Graphic stuff.

 

 

Wilfred Owen

Dulce Et Decorum Est

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

 

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

 

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

 

 

 

 

The last line." Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori means `It is a sweet and noble thing to die for one's country`.

 

A good link to Gorgie as well - Owen taught at Tynecastle High School while undergoing recuperation at Craiglockhart in 1918 for "shell shock". He later returned to his regiment and was killed on 4th November 1918. So Owen would have passed Tynecastle Park every day at that time.

[Jaap's Sigh]

A good link to Gorgie as well - Owen taught at Tynecastle High School while undergoing recuperation at Craiglockhart in 1918 for "shell shock". He later returned to his regiment and was killed on 4th November 1918. So Owen would have passed Tynecastle Park every day at that time.

 

Really? I didn't know that. Pretty cool fact.

 

Sad that he was killed just a week before the end of the war. (Like so many others.)

[mac]

Wilfred Owen - studied him at school - there is a WO Society that sometimes meets at Craiglockhart College, went along once and met his nephew.

 

Check out Seigfreid Sassoon, another fantastic 1st WW poet - they are all filled with poignancy, very moving and heartfelt.

 

"Anthem for doomed youth" is a good one

 

"Futility" is my fave.

[Pistol1874]

Wilfred Owen - studied him at school - there is a WO Society that sometimes meets at Craiglockhart College, went along once and met his nephew.

 

Check out Seigfreid Sassoon, another fantastic 1st WW poet - they are all filled with poignancy, very moving and heartfelt.

 

"Anthem for doomed youth" is a good one

 

"Futility" is my fave.

I knew a simple soldier boy

Who grinned at life in empty joy,

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,

And whistled early with the lark.

 

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

With crumps and lice and lack of rum,

He put a bullet through his brain.

No one spoke of him again.

 

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye

Who cheer when soldier lads march by,

Sneak home and pray you?ll never know

The hell where youth and laughter go.

 

Lest We Forget

[iainmac]

Wilfred Owen - studied him at school - there is a WO Society that sometimes meets at Craiglockhart College, went along once and met his nephew.

 

Check out Seigfreid Sassoon, another fantastic 1st WW poet - they are all filled with poignancy, very moving and heartfelt.

 

"Anthem for doomed youth" is a good one

 

"Futility" is my fave.

 

Sassoon and Owen met at Craiglockhart when both were being treated for shell shock and Sassoon mentored the younger man. Maybe Owen dragged him along to Tynecastle too!

[Tott]

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

 

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

 

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

[Beverley]

not a poem, but a song that will make you choke up

 

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbmlec5EavU

[Debtor]

Some links to good Great War poetry sites.

 

Scots poets

 

War Poetry

 

First World War Poetry

 

Great War Poetry

 

Joe Lee was a Dundee poet of first rank who spent the war with the Black Watch. Look out for him.

 

German Prisoners

By Joseph Lee

 

WHEN first I saw you in the curious street

Like some platoon of soldier ghosts in grey,

My mad impulse was all to smite and slay,

To spit upon you?tread you ?neath my feet.

But when I saw how each sad soul did greet

My gaze with no sign of defiant frown,

How from tired eyes looked spirits broken down,

How each face showed the pale flag of defeat,

And doubt, despair, and disillusionment,

And how were grievous wounds on many a head,

And on your garb red-faced was other red;

And how you stooped as men whose strength was spent,

I knew that we had suffered each as other,

And could have grasped your hand and cried, ?My brother!?

[Deevers]

BEFORE THE SUMMER

 

When our men are marching lightly up and down,

When the pipes are playing through the little town,

I see a thin line swaying through wind and mud and rain

And the broken regiments come back to rest again.

 

Now the pipes are playing, now the drums are beat,

Now the strong battalions are marching up the street,

But the pipes will not be playing and the bayonets will not shine,

When the regiments I dream of come stumbling down the line.

 

Between the silent trenches their silent dead will lie,

Quiet with grave eyes staring at the summer sky,

There is a mist upon them so I cannot see,

The faces of the my friends that walk the little town with me.

 

Lest we see a worse thing than it is to die

Live ourselves and see our friends cold beneath the sky,

God grant we too be lying there in the wind and mud and rain,

Before the broken regiments come stumbling back again.

 

E.A. Mackintosh