A Collection. (TW: Suicide, Drug Overdose, War Violence)
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.
John McCrae. Died January 28, 1918 - Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.
The thundering line of battle stands, And in the air death moans and sings; But Day shall clasp him with strong hands, And Night shall fold him in soft wings.
Julian Henry. Died 26 May 1915 - Boulogne, France
Rupert Chawner Brooke
War knows no power. Safe shall be my going, Secretly armed against all death's endeavour; Safe though all safety's lost; safe where men fall; And if these poor limbs die, safest of all.
Rupert Brooke. Died 23 April 1915. Aegean Sea, off the island of Skyros
You make it in your mess-tin by the brazier's rosy gleam; You watch it cloud, then settle amber clear; You lift it with your bay'nit, and you sniff the fragrant steam; The very breath of it is ripe with cheer. You're awful cold and dirty, and a-cursin' of your lot; You scoff the blushin' 'alf of it, so rich and rippin' 'ot; It bucks you up like anythink, just seems to touch the spot: God bless the man that first discovered Tea!
Written by Canadian poet and Red Cross Ambulance Driver Robert W. Service in his book of War Poems Rhymes of a Red Cross Man. The book was dedicated to the memory of Service's brother, Lieutenant Albert Service, Canadian Infantry, Killed in Action, France, August 1916.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto, "Yet many a better one has died before." Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you Perceive one face that you loved heretofore, It is a spook. None wears the face you knew. Great death has made all his for evermore.
Charles Sorley. This poem was recovered from his kit after his death, 13 October 1915.