Source: File:
Noel Hodgson in uniform. MC ribbon on uniform, which was awarded in 1915.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. See an original image at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._N._Hodgson>
[Accessed 29 June 2016]
From a
Northumberland life
Emerged a man,
William Noel Hodgson
Son of a Bishop,
the youngest
Of four - gaining
a Kings scholarship
To Christ Church,
Oxford -
He set out in
studies of human learning.
With a passion
for classical
Learning, William
Noel always followed
A desire to write
stories
And verse - with this
talent led a young
Mind to publication,
that
Began with the
Nation and The Spectator.
Connections
followed, from
The New Witness,
With Cecil Chesterton
Encouragements to
write.
In a month before
break of war appeared
'The Years Glide
By,'
With an alternative title Labuntur Anni.
The lines depicting
fantasy
Travel - this involve
galleons, lagoons,
Treasures and old
sea kings -
The youthful
William Hodgson had no
Desires for war -
an eagerness
To climb, took
him to heights to reflect.
Life and war
intertwined
As William
climbed the Cairngorms.
To see war's outbreak
In Roma Fuit where the rustic hill
Is disturbed by a
charge -
It is fate of bodies to lay under grass.
It is fate of bodies to lay under grass.
In unavoidable
brutality
To pointless war,
William recognised
That human
tendency -
Despite having no
desire in first days
Of war, he joined
Devonshire
Regiment as junior officer.
In the trail to
fighting,
'Smiler' Hodgson
saw the western front
At Festubert -
within
Two months, in action at Loos, he held
A trench for 36 hours;
A trench for 36 hours;
In despatches he
received Military Cross.
Then Lieutenant
Hodgson
Turned his skills towards a prose direction,
To talk of
experiences.
With the 9th
Devonshires to the Somme,
Stationed in
preparation,
For what rumors
described a big push.
Within the
approach
Of delayed days, weather's actions pushed
Z day two days
later,
To 1st July 1916
- from Fricourt they waited
In trenches of
Mansell Copse,
Their trenches
situated amid a hold of trees.
Situations often
spur
The creative
thought - Hodgson took
His pencil to
paper -
Some strange
inspiration, perhaps
Of death, as he
looked
Over to Germans
machine gun positions.
In old habits of
poetry
Noel Hodgson,
took from his father's
Occupation, to detail
A poem, as in a
prayer to the sun on hills.
Looking to the
glories
Of the day, he
asked for soldier's strength.
From a mix of man's
ability
Of artful
creation, Lieutenant Hodgson
Touched on past
ideals
Of mad
catastrophe - for a lord's power
To make him a man
-
As he climbed by
thoughts, to his hill.
How perhaps, he knew
The futility of
it all - to find a bullet's kiss
Before endless
sunsets.
That mixes
strangeness in one single
Day, to know he
will miss
All human
delights, with death's arrival.
by Jamie Mann.
Source: File: W.
N. Hodgson Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Available at: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._N._Hodgson>
[Accessed 29 June 2016]
Source: File:
William Noel Hodgson (1893 – 1916). Available at:
<http://www.warpoets.org/poets/william-noel-hodgson-1893-1916/> [Accessed 29 June 2016]
Mann, J., 2016. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 29 June 2016)
#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #WW1centenary
#worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered #WW1Somme
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