First World War Poets

[muckaroon1960]

I have put together a small collection of cap badges which represent the Army and Navy battalions of some of my favourite war poets. All were active during the first World War and some were inactive by the end of it!
Top left is the badge for the Royal Naval Hood battalion in which Sub Lt Rupert Brooke (03/08/87 - 23/04/15) served in the Mediterranean and died of blood poisoning due to a mosquito bite. He is buried on the Greek island of Skyros.
Top centre: Royal Welch Fusiliers. Capt Siegfried Sassoon (08/09/86 - 01/09/67) and Capt Robert Graves (24/07/95 - 07/12/85) both of whom survived the war.
Top right and below: Royal Garrison Artillery. 2nd Lt Edward Thomas (03/03/78 - 09/04/17) KIA battle of Arras. Buried Agny Military Cemetery, Pas-de-Calais, France.
Centre left: Rifles Brigade. 2nd Lt Robert Vernede (1875 - 09/04/17) KIA at Havrincourt same day as Edward Thomas. Buried at Le Bucquiere Communal Cemetery, France. His Great Nephew is our family solicitor.
Bottom Left: 5th Volunteer Manchester regiment. Lt Wilfred Owen (18/03/93 - 04/11/18) KIA Sambre-Oise canal. Buried Ors communal cemetery, France.
Bottom right: Artists Rifles. Both Edward Thomas and Wilfred Owen joined the Artists rifles before transferring to their other regiments.

It was a biography of Edward Thomas that got me into poetry and I've now completed nearly 60 poems! Write On!!!!

N.B. Not sure which if any of these badges are original although the artillery badges, rifle brigade and the Hood battalion look old?

[Tailgunnerdownunder]

Great work Paul. :thumbsup:

[Dave_Holden]

Here is a poem by Rupert Brooke, one of the soldiers you mention. Found it online, listed as written in the trenches, but who knows??

The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England’s, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Rupert Brooke, soldier and poet.
Fathered a child and suffered from a terrible mental breakdown. Despite this he was headed for great things when sadly he died on 23rd April 1915.

[muckaroon1960]

Written in 1914 possibly in England whilst on leave late 1914 following his return from Belgium and his battalions action at Antwerp. As for fathering a child, uncertain if this is true but he did have an affair with a local woman in Tahiti who may have borne his child which he either knew or didn't want to know?

[Dave_Holden]

Fascinating stuff indeed.