Poem ~ Charlie Sorley: Officer of Poetry - Sunday, 17 January 1915

 

Source: File: Charles Hamilton Sorley in military uniform.jpg, 2015. Charles Sorley, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 17 January 1915. [online] Available at:<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sorley >[Accessed: 17 January 2015].

  

i  A Boy's Life

In Aberdeen of 1895 were born male twins,

William Ritchie Sorley and his elder brother,

Of some moments - Charles Hamilton Sorley. 

To Powis House, a mansion of the old town

Came this young family, with boys aged one -

A wild windy placed looking over the North

Sea - their home surrounded with fields,

Which were filled with the life of the wild -

And not so far away a station - for the boys

Led to mystery kingdoms down the tracks.

By age of five, now joined by a sister, the boys

Experienced another move - to Cambridge

Where their father was to become a university

Professor  - so the twins’ education began -

To centre on games of marching and singing.

Both in English and French - their sources,

Being the Pilgrims Progress and the Bible -

Along with ballads of Scott, Blake and bard

Of Shakespeare - all before a school career.

The older, Charlie Sorley, joined as a day boy,

At the King’s college choir school - happy

In everything - everywhere making adventures.

As twins, the boys looks and nature differed,

But a separation from his brother was uneasy;

For six weeks William fell ill with Scarlet Fever.

ii School Life

Aged 13 in 1908 Charlie gained a scholarship

With Marlborough College - separation again

Took him from William, then at another school.

Charlie by 1910 moved into the senior house,

Gaining delight in Alderley library - his resource.

This move Charlie had done with a friend

A boy who sadly, after a short illness, died.

Charlie was said to have taken this quietly.

With favoured runs across rain filled country,

He took solitary walks and to share in sports -

With iron views on right and wrong Charlie

Gave himself voluntary, for breaking of rules.

By December 1913 came yet another move

In education, with a scholarship for University

College Oxford – so Charlie agreed to leave

Marlborough early, an ending he would miss.

A habit for Charlie had been to write down

What was in his mind – early on this had been

In Forms of heroic verse, in a style of Scott –

The growing Charlie though, became reserved,

With his family knowing less of his activities.

  

Unknown to them he took part in a debating

Society  -making speeches and interactions

With the Malburian – the school magazine.

For a time his heroic verse tuned to shockers;

He told in dormitories within the dead of night.

Next in a move from lower to upper sixth,

Charlie gained leave to travel to Germany

First completing commitments to the Malburian

Preserving them for a family archive -Charlie

Sent batches of compositions to his mother,

On regular occasions, until June 1915.

iii  University Life

Now the twins were 19, when young Charlie,

On 20 January 1914, travelled away to Schmerin

In Mecklenberg – where he stayed with family

Of a lawyer – Charlie happily learned German,

And gained new friends  - with spring and April,

Charlie moved to Jena to become a university

Student - summer came in hot June, his family

Visited, for a stay in Jena and a tour of Thuringia.

During the Saturday evening of their weekend

Stay, Charlie led them through a town square -

Where men and women gathered about tables,

Under flared lights, with singing and drinking –

These people, who Charlie believed as having

Stupid expressions. The next day in climbing

A hill, they saw again such German habits.

They sat and looked across Jena - Charlie could

Not make out the German student who would

Spend two years in fighting, in folly drunkenness -

Only in the third year, did such students work -

To get though their exams - then with July 1914,

Came time for Charlie to trace his steps home.

A walking tour was planned, with a friend across

The Moselle valley, to join his brother William,

In Schwern  - in order to return home together

But this plan was never to happen - on Sunday

2 August, Charlie and friend were at Trier,

When suddenly arrested - to be placed in separate

Cells for a day – reasons for detainment given,

Due to their not wearing a hat – Charlie informed

The officer, such was a habit for people in Britain. 

Those long hours were relieved, by conversation,

With a soldier prisoner in the next cell - speaking

Through a knot hole while keeping awareness

Of the sentry – as tourists they were released,

And ordered to leave the country – so Charlie

Returned by way of Belgium – through Liege 

By train - as he drowsed on Monday afternoon,

Saw soldiers wearing waterloo hats on a platform.

By Brussels then Antwerp, Charlie shared

The problems of gaining passage homeward –

Finally to get aboard a boat, the British Consul

Had chartered - by 6 August Charlie made it home

Still hatless with a Jena beer mug and sandals.

  

iv Army Life

With hardly time to take any breath on 7 August,

Charlie applied to take an army commission,

With the university board of military studies –

Yet with nothing happening Charlie, in Oxford,

Made out another application to join up.

Charlie considered of joining as a private -

He believed to be 'the really heroic thing to do' -

When he found the Gazette displayed his name

For a new service battalion - the 7th Battalion

Of Suffolk Regiment - to be a second Lieutenant.

On that same day, came orders for him to report

At Churn, a training camp on the Berkshire Downs.

By third week of September he arrived At Shorncliffe

Situated above town of Folkstone - learning history

Of the 'Old Dozen' - his regiment with all its traditions.

Amid letters of 1915 - the date uncertain - yet written

In mid January - Lieutenant Charles Sorley wrote

From Shorncliffe, to say of alarming monotony,

Of his existence - how staleness affects the men

And officers alike - a reported lack of efficiency 

Meant they were unlikely to move for a time.

Days went swift but with nothing to show - living

For a future turned to the past - in habit of old men.

'War is chasm in time,' Charles defied the media's

Habit to claim 'war is ennobling purge' - only to cause

Unhappiness and lack of comforts - papers should

He felt, be muzzled - any illusion of war as splendour

Would need to be purged, after the end of the war.

Any leave was in abeyance, despite the inactivity -

He felt for his friend, with Oriel men mostly in khaki.

Charles made envy with his advantage of working

With his brain - his own felt stagnant - even any will

To learn French was absent - his mind stayed shut.

by Jamie Mann

 Anon., 1919. The Letters of Charles Sorley with a Chapter on Biography.

 Cambridge University Press.  Chapter 1 Biographical.

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