God in Australian Great War Poetry
By mgr Dominic P.G. Sheridan
Abstract
Throughout the ages poets have
spoken about God and to God in all manner of ways. They cried out for help and
sung out in praise, and the tones of their verse have been anything from base
familiarity to exultant praise. But all poets have recognised God as a standard
for mankind’s sense of morality and ethics, as well as the locus of the true
self. However, poets who found themselves living in times of war often spoke of
God in a more earnest and even urgent way. They saw God as a means of
protection and succour. As someone to be with in good times and to turn to in
the worst moments. This is of course most normal, however, the Australian Great
War poets, who also saw God in these ways, saw God in their fellow man and the
world around them. They saw the destruction caused by war as a desecration of
God and a sacrilege against Him. Australian poets, men and women, servicemen,
nurses and civilians, saw God as the first and last refuge of sane men. Not in
any pantheistic way, God was seen in the soldier’s fellow man and the landscape
of Australia. In the case of man, who was made in God’s image, Australian poets
saw God’s image in the reflection of innocence and good deeds, while in the
case of the Australian landscape, poets saw God’s hand of creation. For the
Australian Great War poet, God was the binding factor of human existence.
Key Words
God,
epithalamium, relationship, poetry, Australian
Introduction
It is not unusual for a poet to talk
about God and heaven, nor his relationship with God, but we may discern certain
characteristics which might be specific to man’s attachment to God in war
poetry. William Blake spoke about God’s gifts to His creatures in his poem “The
Little Black Boy” showing that God not only affected nature, but was also able
to enter it for us “Look on the rising
sun, there God does live, / And gives his light, and gives his heat away; / And
flowers and trees and beasts and men receive / Comfort in morning, joy in the
noonday.” (Appelbaum 3) Blake shows in these words that God loved His creatures
so much that He directed nature for our comfort, and by so doing, He made a
world which only required of us that we respect it, and in so doing we show our
love for God. To this end we will reflect on God in Australian Great
War poetry, and how He is considered by the poets who formulated poetic
relationships with Him.
We
will look specifically at four of many possible aspects of man’s relationship
with his Creator as it occurs in the poetry of World War One, and from this we
will see how Australians of the time considered God, knowingly or not, as the
true spiritual essence of the world and life around them as Blake would attest
to. As is seen in this poetry, Australian poets saw God’s likeness in their
fellow man and the countryside, and formed relationships with God, but also
recognised that the war itself had functioned as a desecration of God’s image
and man’s theistic relationship.
The
poets which appear in this paper represent only a small amount of the
Australian Great War poets who spoke of God and heaven. There are many poets
who spoke about God in terms of His absence, such as those poems which talk
about hell and the evil of war. But the poets who appear here may be considered
as a good representation of what we might call “God’s poets”.
God Seen in Man
One of the most prolific writers of
man’s relationship with God is Private Reynold Cleve Potter, a member of the 21st
Battalion. In his poem “Remembrance”, he speaks of a friend in Arms, Private
W.J. England, who went missing in action. He speaks of his God-like qualities. “He
caught God’s sunshine as it fell; / And meted it to all. // A God-like man, of
God-like mind, / Embracive, noble, bright, / A heart like Nature’s, large and
kind, / Diffusing life and light.” (Matthews 91) Potter’s verse consistently
affirms his desire to keep God in his life throughout the war years, as can be
seen in his 1917 poem “Jesus lover of my soul”. A short poem which seeks the
unification of man with God: “Jesus lover of my soul / Let me to thy bosom fly
/ While the shots of battle roll / While the turmoil still is high / Hide me,
oh my Saviour, hide / Till the battle cloud is past. / Safe into the haven
guide / Oh receive my soul at last.” (Matthews 77)
However, while Potter wrote much
about man’s relationship with God, it is Frederic Manning who would
characterise the realisation of God being seen in one’s fellow man. He sees God
in his fellow man, notably in his poem “The Face”. The distortion and gruesome
sights of war make us realise the loss of human beauty, which is an image, as
it were, of God, and war has broken that image. “I thrust aside the cloud, as
it were tangible, / Blinded with a mist of blood. / The face cometh again / As
a wrath of sleep: / The very mask of God, / Broken.” (Manning 15) Manning’s
horrific dream, which brings to mind the poetry of Wilfred Owen and Ivor Gurney,
shows that the soldier sees in his fellow sufferers, the face of God which has
been broken by war. Manning continues the theme of God’s image in his poem
“Worship”. He sees God’s grace mirrored in “thy” face. By looking into the face
of the poem’s object, Manning declares that he is in paradise, for this is the
image of God’s grace. “God’s very grace / Is perfect in thy face, / Mirrored
such wise / That I mine own soul there imparadise.” (Manning 49)
In J. Le Gay Brereton’s “The Dead”,
he further echoes Manning’s “The Face” and even declares the rather Nietzschean
idea that God is dead. “Farewell, high-hearted friends, for God is dead / If
such as you can die and fare not well / -If when you fall your gallant spirit
fail.” (Brereton 25) We know God in our friends, and if they can die, then so
too God must die. This is, of course, metaphoric, but a theme of great interest
and shows the depth of the poet as he clings to God through his friend and his
friend through God.
Nina Murdoch’s poem “Supposing”,
also echoes Manning’s “The Face”. Heaven, she says, is in the embrace of her
loved one. Again, we find poets finding God in those they love. “…Heaven is
here in your arms’ hollow.” (Murdoch 49)
In part 9 of H. Patterson’s epic
poem “Song of the Anzac” (Helles – Achi Baba), he shows Christ in action where
one man carries the burden of another as if the wounded man is physically
encumbered with the sins of the world. “Christianity in action, love that bears
another’s burdens.” (Patterson 51) Like so many stretcher bearers at Gallipoli,
Patterson shows them as “splendid men”, “carrying their Christly toil”.
(Patterson 50) “…They [the dead] are in God’s perfect keeping; / Turks will
venerate our dead brothers, risen, as Christ, no longer sleeping.” (Patterson 82)
One of Australia’s great female
poets, Margery Ruth Betts, shows in her poem “Silenced”, a comparison between a
dead soldier and Christ, and that silence speaks for the dead who yet live. This
poem begins with Betts talking of a young soldier who was killed before he
could have given something to the world: “…men have lost the words you might
have said, / As though men would have gained had you grown old,” and ends with
her talking about Christ being killed before His work could have saved more:
“There still were sick unhealed and babes unblest, / That day He gave His body
to the cross. / Let silence speak the rest.” (Betts 34) She recognises that the
dead soldier is still near to her. Betts goes further still in her poem “The
Young Dead”, where she invokes an image of the holy Mass when the priest
consecrates the wine into blood. “For us, your yielded youth is gathered up /
Like to the wine in God’s uplifted cup, / Which kneeling at His altar steps we
take.” (Betts 20)
In all of these poets, God is seen
in their fellow man and this invocation serves to unite man and God into a
common cause; a cause which may uplift the exiled heart and find peace. St.
John wrote that unless mankind embraces one another in a brotherly love, then
the perfection of true happiness is impossible. “No one has ever seen God. Yet,
if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is brought to
perfection in us.” (1 John 4:12) St. John, like the poets mentioned above, knew
that God reveals Himself in us and through our works, and this is why war is
considered by so many poets as hell, for hell is the destruction of all that is
good.
Desecration and Blasphemy
When contemplating God within the
cannon of Australian Great War poetry, we may also notice that the poets
observed that war was something akin to the desecration of God in the world and
a blasphemy against God in mankind. Several poets make some sort of comment
about this phenomenon, and they all have in common the feeling of sin against
God. Yet, this sin was not something the poets saw as pertaining to the
combatant, as much as the political machinery which caused the war in the first
place. This machinery may ultimately be run by man, but the soldier was not the
bearer of the sin of war. Potter makes the point very clearly in his poem
“Still ascending, still unending”, where he writes “Struggling mortals past
Hell’s portals / Plunged in lurid flame, / Torn and bleeding, Hell’s fires
feeding / With carnage; blight and shame. / Not theirs, O God, the shame who
fight / But theirs who caused this awful blight.” (Matthews 114) For Potter,
the soldier was the victim of war and war was a desecration of God’s created
world.
Yet, while some poets, such as
Brereton, considered the rather Nietzschean idea that God is dead in his poem
“The Dead” as mentioned above, others, such as Manning, recognised the horrific
profanity of war in “The Face”. In essence, Manning shows us that war
desecrates the sanctity of God, and is thus a sacrilege against God. The
“broken” mask of God had appeared in the nightmarish horror of the poet who saw
“A boy’s face, white and tense, / Convulsed with terror and hate, / The lips
trembling…” (Manning 15) Manning’s nightmare would go on to then see a red
smear falling down the boy’s face, whose face was delicate and blonde, and as
Manning notes, “The very mask of God”. But the horror of this image was a
blasphemy against God’s image in Manning’s fellow man. It is a powerful, yet
frighteningly tormented poem that shines the brightest light on the profanity
and sacrilege of war.
In Potter’s 15 stanza poem
“Regrets”, written in 1917, he identifies that war has covered God’s face and
alludes to the sin of Cain against Abel. “But clouds soon spread o’er the day
God’s face / And hushed was the joy and mirth / And a tumult fell on the human
race / And madness and hate had birth / The thunder crashed / And the lightning
flashed / And harmony fled from the earth.” (Potter 129) Potter’s imagery may
arouse thoughts of an evil covering God’s creation as clouds block out the sun
and cast thunderous shadows all over the land. The metaphor as it applies to
war is quite distinct and profound.
In J. Le Gay Brereton’s “Hymn to the
God of War”, he shows that man has desecrated God’s shrine by the act of war.
“And lo, we come to thy shrine, / O God, but we ask for no grace, / For our
hearts are made glad with a wine / That is death to the craven and base, / And
thy shrine shall be burnt for our mirth / And thine altar be turned to thy
bier, / For, if Love be our Lord upon earth, / What corner is left for thee
here? / The veil of thy temple is rent-” (Brereton 2012 - 18) Brereton brings
to light the idea that man ultimately damns himself by his own acts and by
these acts he commits God to His death by burning Him on His own altar. Pity
for the sacrilegious character of this act may be found in a nurse’s poem
“Tourists in the Cathedral”, written by Catherine E. Bonwick. She pities those
who fail to understand the real treasures of the church in her poem. “For this
historic building, which to some / Means solace, inspiration, peace most real,
/ Where earthly cares and heaven seems to touch, / Remains for you / Merely an
old museum to hurry through- / Is it impertinence for us to feel /Pity for you,
who somehow miss so much?” (Bonwick 20-21) Both Bonwick and Brereton may
indicate that God’s Church is also found in the abstract existence of life
itself.
Manning makes a further contribution
here in his poem “The Lost Angel”. He identifies a very human flaw: “Soiled am
I now with dust, and frustrate glories / wane, and are tarnished on my darkened
brows; / Yea, all my love is for the joys that perish. / How may mine eyes
behold my naked soul?” (Manning 57) Manning shows that the desecration and
sacrilege of which Brereton and Bonwick speak, also applies to the human body,
which becomes stained with the dust of sin and naked with the exposure of
guilt. This is quite opposite to Potter’s claim of “Not theirs the shame who
fight”, but it may be rather more connected with the feeling of guilt, which
many soldiers felt.
While poets recognise the sacrilege
of war, they also saw a need to fight back against it. In “Vae Victis” (woe to
the vanquished), Betts defies the enemy of the free world who thinks it has
killed her loved one and silenced God’s call to love thy neighbour. The following
shows this: “Oh, vast and implacable wrong, oh, cannon and Kaiser and sword, /
Think you that the guns have slain his soul or silenced the word of the Lord?
// Free from the cleaving, clamorous flesh, and earthly passions and pains, /
For it is not his strength you have broken, wrong, but his chains.” (Betts 24)
Betts notes in this poem that on one hand, the killed man is now free of human
bondage and thus stronger to help those left behind, while on the other hand,
the killed Christ is stronger by virtue of His conquering death. For Betts, the
defilement of God in war is no victory for Evil over Good, but an awakening of
the need to have fortitude in our faith in God. It is, in fact, a call to fight
the Good fight. A call to Arms.
Epithalamium – Wedded in War and
Dying as One
W.J. Turner speaks of the common
unity of men in his poem “Epithalamium for a Modern Wedding”. The poem itself
talks about how beauty dies, but Turner shows that, as two become one, husband
and wife, they go into eternity together. This also holds with the marriage (so
to speak) of soldiers in comradeship. “We that so long have held each other
dear, / Join hands, Beloved; purposing to be / One hand and life, one effort
and career, / One soul and Self, into eternity.” (Turner 36) Turner,
Australia’s only Georgian poet, writes about a certain difference between love
and lust, and that being married, husband and wife will soon realise that it is
only love that lives into eternity. “I no longer seek to hold / Beauty with
enchanted eyes; / ‘Tis vain for beauty dies…” (Turner 37) While Turner’s
“Epithalamium” celebrates marriage, it also recognises his understanding that
marriage may be considered metaphoric for one’s love of comradeship or one’s
fidelity with God.
When
it comes to a soldier’s comradeship with his friends, there may be seen certain
aspects of duty, loyalty and sacrifice. Tom Skeyhill’s poem “Fallen Comrades”,
notes that soldiers where often knelt in prayer for friends who were killed in
action. “Whilst coming from the trenches / And glancing over there, / I’ve oft
seen many a khaki form, / Kneeling in silent prayer.” (Skeyhill 35) In this
action of silent prayer, Skeyhill gives great meaning to Turner’s
“Epithalamium”. These comrades are wedded in their friendship which was fired and
blessed in the crucible of war, yet in death, they are at their physical end,
even though they live on as youthful beauty does for all eternity, for the
young dead of war shall not grow old.
Brereton
echoes Turner’s “Epithalamium” and furthers Skeyhill’s “Fallen Comrades” in his
poem “Home”, where in the final stanza he says; “Here we are wed, and here / We
live under God’s own eye.” (Brereton 2012 - 21) Brereton identifies the grave
as the final marriage bed and the soldiers as the wedded couple, where one
mourns over the other’s death. This love is not the physical love between a man
and a woman, but that love of which Christ commanded of us: “Just as I loved
you, you also should love one another.” (John 13:34)
Another
very good female poet, May Kidson, echoes Turner’s “Epithalamium” writing in
her poem “The Call” that two become one, and love’s burning passion fades into
a connection of thought-waves. “Over the walls of Time and space, / I hear your
spirit call; / Listening I catch the message sent, / Know Love still all in
all. // Where two souls meet as one, dear heart, / Finding the other’s mate, /
E’en Time’s own scythe can never mow / Those blossoms sown by Fate. // So I can
face the long years, dear, / And what life yet shall see, / Knowing full well
that thought-waves meet / Ever for you and me.” (Kidson 23) Kidson, a master of
the mother’s undying love for her son, shows that the union of love between two
people, as long as it is love and not love’s counterfeit, is eternal just as
Turner says in the first stanza of “Epithalamium”.
For
Edwin Field Gerard (better known as Trooper Gerardy), some soldiers were
running to God, as Australians slowly conquered the Holy Land where the
Christian faith was born. “The land of Christ and David, / Where Christian
faith was born, / Seemed weary, and content to sleep / Till resurrection morn.
// And Christmas came to meet us / By hill and palmy hod, / When all the bells
of Bethlehem / Were pealing forth to God.” (Gerardy 82) He states that the
bells of Bethlehem rang out to tell God they had arrived, almost as though
Christianity was reborn in Bethlehem that Christmas. In this, we may note that
Gerardy unites man with God as a form of Turner’s “Epithalamium”. Gerardy also gives
testament to Christian hope in his poem “Our Immortal Dead”: “Grieve not above
the mounded sod! / The hidden dead shall be reborn / With thee on resurrection
morn / Within the kingdom of God.” (Gerardy 95) Gerardy gives Godly pity for
Skeyhill’s prayerful soldiers who kneel next to their dead comrades, and in clear
sympathetic resonance, the image of eternity rings through.
Yet,
even beyond the war, the connection made clear by Turner might be seen in our
daily lives where the bond is unbreakable. Rose-Soley shows that there is a
strong connection with the dead in her “L’Entente Cordiale”. The first stanza
shows how the dead remained with the living in some way. “The pale dawn crept
on All Saints’ Day, / The air was peopled with our dead; / ‘Comrades and
friends,’ Our Colonel said, / ‘We mourn them, too, ces braves Anglais.’”
(Rose-Soley 25) This shows a poetic glimpse into the eternal connection between
those who love each other and Rose-Soley gives one of the best examples of
this.
An Intimate Relationship with God
The eternal relationship between man
and God as put forward in Turner’s “Epithalamium”, is further revealed in
various poems which indicate the deep relationships man has with God. One of
the best examples of the private closeness a soldier has with God is found in
Manning’s “αὺτάρκϵια”, where he shows
a personal and private knowledge of God. “…the progeny of dreams / I father;
even this England which is mine / Whereof no man has seen the loveliness / As
with mine eyes: and even too, my God / Whom none have known as I: for these I
fight.” (Manning 29) Manning states very clearly the reason he is a soldier,
and it is because of his sense of duty to his private knowledge of home and
God. The things he, and only he, has seen and known through his experience.
A New Zealand poet ironically known only
as ‘Philistine’ writes “A Soldier’s Prayer”, where he says, after giving thanks
to God, that his suffering is some sort of soothing comfort – represented by
the crucifix he wears under his blanket. “Altho’ it’s the herd I’m livin’ with,
/ An’ the ungodly with what I mix, / Beneath me rough grey blankets still / Is
the soothin’ feel of me crucifix.” (Bolitho 24) The privacy of Manning’s “αὺτάρκϵια” is echoed here by
‘Philistine’, for no one can see or know his personal experience with the
crucifix beneath his blanket.
God’s comforting protection of us
may also be seen in Potter’s “I crouch low in the cold muddy trenches”, where
he notes that perhaps God has allowed the death flags to furl so that the next
day may be easier to bear. “Maybe the great God in his mercy / Bade the Demons
their death flags to furl / That our hearts may be eased on the morrow.”
(Potter 186) In “I’m stumbling into battle”, Potter also finds comfort in God’s
presence in the trenches with him. “’Courage, I will be your refuge. / I the
stormy path have trod. / Fear not those who fain would kill thee. / Still! And
know that I am God’.” (Potter 140-141) Potter, like ‘Philistine’ feels a
personal protection from God, and like Manning, he recognises an intimacy which
transcends the horrors of the trench.
In Leon Gellert’s “The Trumpets of
Heaven”, he shows that after the patriotic songs which called men to war (where
they then died), that God showed His revenge on the world by allowing vast
battalions of dead to cross the skies as stars. These are metaphoric for images
of the dead who look at us with their blinding eyes. “A call on the height! And
from the blinding skies / Come white battalions with their blinding eyes.”
(Gellert 21) Gellert shows God as one who wants us to see that the dead have a
terrible knowledge because of their death in duty. Having died after the great
patriotic songs that took them to war, they now see all eternity, still dutiful
to each other and bound to God. L.E. Homfray shows in “Some Day”, that in God,
man will one day understand why we must die. “Some day, some time, in God’s
eternal wisdom, / Our troubled souls shall reach that Better Land, / Where,
looking back upon life’s day of sadness, / Our restless hearts shall know and
understand.” (Homfray 14) Gellert develops the idea in “Now ‘neath the Cool
Stars”, but takes it to a more personal level. “Now ‘neath the cool stars / I
know thee more. / Here where the world wars / By the winding shore.” (Gellert
48) The poem is directed to his lover (wife or girlfriend) back in Australia,
but it certainly signals Gellert’s man and God relationship from “Now ‘neath
the Cool Stars”.
In
“The Soldier”, Gellert shows that in death the soldier receives the light of
God; that war is a noise inhuman, but death, the result of war, gives peace. “See
where they sleep / In battered lines. / Here lies his bed / So long and deep, /
And on his broken head / A shaft from Heaven shines.” (Gellert 54) It may be understood
here that the other side of the broken head is heaven. In “God’s Heroes”, L.E.
Homfray recognises that the unknown deeds of the dead shall be known by God.
“Their names may not remembered be, / Their sacrifices all unknown, / But they
shall stand in God’s great day / As heroes round His Altar Throne.” (Homfray
13)
In “Somewhere at sea now thy husband
sleeps”, Potter recognises God as the one who knows all, even when a sparrow
falls. He notes that the life God gave, He’ll keep. This indicates Potter’s
belief that those who live in God will be saved, even in the hell of war. “We
know that He marks the sparrow’s fall / And the life that He gave He’ll keep.” (Potter
18) Yet, Potter furthers his post-death understanding in the poem “This is my
hope”. Potter hopes that after the death of this life that there will be no
second death. In this poem he raises Saint Augustine’s concept of the ‘second
death’. “This is my hope till trump shall sound / On that eternal shore / And
Christ shall call my soul to life / And death shall be no more.” (Potter 47)
Potter brings to light another
aspect of man’s intimate relationship with God in his poem “Still ascending,
still unending”. He talks about how any struggle is vain if God is against it. “Oh!
Death thou art impervious still, / I only answer at God’s will.” (Potter 114) Potter
also echoes McCrae’s notion of the ‘just war’ in her “My Soldier”. “Not theirs,
O God, the shame who fight / But theirs who caused this awful blight.” (Potter
114) McCrae shows us her notion of the Just War in her poem “War”, which evokes
virtues we might ascribe to God. “Hate, torture, pillage, greed, / Fear,
famine, vengeance, need, / Broken hearts, shattered law, / God denied…This is
War! // Might, mercy, sacrifice, / Strength, valour, crushing vice, / Chivalry
without flaw / God declared…This is War!” (McCrae: The Clear Call - 30)
Many times these poets talk to God
in a direct conversational way. In “My Soldier”, by McCrae, the woman talks to
God in a way that is rather familiar. “God! How I love him for his need of me!”
(McCrae 16) In “The Call”, she says “We are too safe, of God! / Too safe we
here / We need Thy chastening rod / To wake our fear.” (McCrae 17) McCrae is
talking directly to God in these poems in the same way she would talk to her
father. In May Kidson’s poem “Spirit Children - War Days. 1918”, she talks to
God in a very familiar way, just like McCrae. She talks to God, telling Him of
her sorrow that she will never have children because her husband died in the
war. “O God! To think no child of thine / Shall ever nestle on my knee- / No
living memory of thee / About my yearning heart entwine.” (Kidson 8)
These intimate moments between man
and God also included a realisation that God lived among us. Bonwick, shows
that the church is a place where we know God, but also where we live. The
church is a place of those who gather in God’s name and thus illustrates the
idea that God is in us. The poems “We Came on a Freighter” and “Someone Sleeps
in Church” are two examples. “These churches, grey and old, / That seem to hold
/ Not just the love of God, but all the sum / Of all the joy and all the
tragedy / From hearts abrim with thankfulness, or numb / With bitter grief.”
(Bonwick 5) “Sleep on: nor fear disgrace. / God knows just why / You cannot
keep awake / Within this place!” (Bonwick 19) While Bonwick identifies the
church as a place where we live with God, Betts takes us to the streets. In the
final stanza of her poem “A Mean Street”, Betts shows that Christ is amongst
us, and heaven is only at the end of the street. The ‘street’ is a metaphor for
life, and Betts uses this very well. “Just such a mean and common little
street, / Where such a common man as Christ might live; / Living and dead, you
knew that it was sweet, / And worth whatever things a man could give. / You
stretched your hand to touch them, neighbour, friend, / Your hand that was redeemed
and cleansed and shriven, / Then went your way. And at the mean street’s end /
You found the gates of Heaven.” (Betts 40-41) For Betts, heaven is not a place,
as much as it is a life in God.
However, E. Nea-Smith, saw God
everywhere. In her poem “Spring Ritual…In Bushland”, she notes that the pride
of true Australians was completely inhabited by God. “Merrily rustled leaflets,
/ To the music of the air. / Nature thrilled divinely, / Ah! God was
everywhere.” (Nea-Smith 14) Further, the true Australian was naturally inclined
to God because of the beauteous flora and wild landscapes of his homeland. Nea-Smith
says in her poem “Australia!”, that God gave us Australia; a land filled with
beauty. “Our lovely land by God endowed, / Reason have we to be proud. / Her
beauty holds us unified, / She is our boast, our joy and pride.” (Nea-Smith 3) As
we know from many Australian Great War poets, Australian flora was most highly
prized.
In the case of war, poets asked God
the eternal question – “Why?” Kidson, in her “When ‘the Kit’ Comes Home Alone”,
says; “O God! Dear God! Why, why, should such things be?” (Kidson 9) Kidson
foreshadows recurring memories of the biblical writing of Moses: “Even after my
skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself shall
behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within me!”
(Job 19:26-27) Like Manning’s private knowledge of God in “αὺτάρκϵια”, Kidson sets down man’s utter reliance on God. Potter
might have the last word here in his poem “The war at last is over”, Potter
makes a plea to God asking that we never suffer war again. “Great God of Might
and Mercy, may this ne’er be our lot / From the mainspring of our lives we make
this prayer / Far rather would we perish and so pass by all forgot / To
whatever fate awaits us ‘Over There’.” (Potter 209)
Conclusion
Considering this Australian poetry
from the Great War, one is compelled to see that Australian poets generally
followed the message of the Gospel, which is to love one another as Christ has
loved us. These poets were clearly religious people to varying extents, but they
all recognised that the destruction of their fellow man was a desecration of
God. They saw through their poetic words, that God dwelt among them, that God
was defiled by war, that they were forever united with God, that they were
intimately connected to God and that they needed God to deliver them from war
and human strife. There is a great plethora of Australian Great War poetry
which talks about man’s connections with God; far too much to include here, but
the message of these poets is clear, that without God they would not see value
in their fellow man.
Bibliography
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Betts,
Margery Ruth (1917) Remembering and Other Verse. Australian Authors’ Agency:
Melbourne
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Ed.
by Bolitho, Hector (1918) Khaki Christmas – Month of December 1918. Ferguson:
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Gellert,
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Trooper
Gerardy (1919) Australian Light Horse Ballads and Rhymes. H.H. Champion
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Honfray,
L.E. (ND) Australians, Awake! And Other Poems. D.S. Ford: Sydney
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Kidson,
May (1918) Memory’s Voices. Returned Serviceman’s Association: Perth
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King,
Johnathan (2014) Gallipoli Diaries – The Anzac’s Own Story Day by Day. Scribe: Melbourne
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Gay Brereton, J. (ND) The Burning Marl. The Galleon Press: Melbourne
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Gay Brereton, John (2012) 73 Poems. PoemHunter.com – The World’s Poetry
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Manning,
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McCrae,
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McCrae,
Dorothy Frances (ND) Soldier my Soldier! George Robertson & Company:
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Murdoch,
Nina (1922) More Songs of the Open Air. Robertson & Mullens: Melbourne
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Patterson,
H. (1918) Song of the Anzac. Flinders House: Flinders
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Rose-Soley,
Agnes (1923) Stray Chords. Tyrrell’s Limited: Sydney
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Tom (ND) Soldier Songs from Anzac. George Robertson & Company: Melbourne
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Turner,
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