Robert Frost's commemorative poem: Edward Thomas March 3, 1878--April 9, 1917

Sadly, Edward Thomas is another of those artists, from many countries, whose artistic life was cut short during the Great War.  He enlisted in the army in 1915 and was sent to France as an artillery officer at the end of January 1917.   Thomas was at a forward observation post when he was killed.

I posted a sample of his poetry on June 8, 2014 and Dec. 23, 2013 and prose on March 20, 2015.   Robert Frost, a friend and mentor, published the following poem in 1923 in his collection, New Hampshire. 



To E. T.

I slumbered with your poems on my breast
Spread open as I dropped them half-read through
Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb
To see, if in a dream they brought of you.

I might not have the chance I missed in life
Through some delay, and call you to your face
First soldier, and then poet, and then both,
Who died a soldier-poet of your race.

I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain
Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained--
And one thing more that was not then to say:
The Victory for what it lost and gained.

You went to meet shell's embrace of fire
On Vimy Ridge, and when you fell that day
The war seemed over more for you than me,
But now for me than you--the other way.

How over, though, for even me who knew
The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine,
If I was not to speak of it to you
And see you pleased once more with words of mine?
 -- Robert Frost --



"E.T. . . .British essayist Edward Thomas . . ., a close friend of Frost's in England, began writing poetry with Frost's encouragement.   He joined the army in 1915, the year that Frost returned to the United States.   Several of Thomas's poems were published pseudonomously  from 1915 to 1917 and Frost succeeded in having a collection of Thomas's poems published in America."
from "Notes"
Robert Frost:  Collected Poems, Prose, & Plays
Richard Poirier and  Mark Richardson, Editors



Following is one of Thomas's last poems, written on December 24, 1916, while in England at home with his family.


Out in the dark

Out in the dark over the snow
The fallow fawns invisible go
With the fallow doe;
And the winds blow
Fast as the stars are slow.

Stealthily the dark haunts round
And, when a lamp goes, without sound
At a swifter bound
Then the swiftest hound,
Arrives, and all else is drowned,

And star and I and wind and deer
Are in the dark together, -- near,
Yet far, -- and fear
Drums on my ear
In that sage company drear.

How weak and little is the light,
All the universe of sight,
Love and delight,
Before the might,
If you love it not, of night.

 -- Edward Thomas --
 
The "Notes" regarding this poem in Edward Thomas: The Annotated Collected Poems suggest that Thomas Hardy's poem, "The Fallow Deer at the Lonely House," may have been influenced by Thomas's poem.  As Hardy is another favorite of mine, I must take a look at his poem.  It's intriguing to find Thomas as sort of a link between Frost and Hardy, both favorite poets of mine.   And, that "If" at the end sounds a note of ambiguity that is reminiscent of  both Hardy and Frost.
 
You will be seeing more of Edward Thomas's poetry here in the future.  If you haven't read anything by him yet, I would recommend you take a look.   And, thanks again to Stephen Pentz at "First Known When Lost" for introducing Thomas to me. 

It's a remarkable poem, considering it was written some four months before his death, and he knew he would be sent to France within the month.  Is it prophetic?
  

Edward Thomas: Birdsong

I had just learned of Edward Thomas a few years ago, thanks to Stephen Pentz, at his blog, First Known When Lost  (see sidebar for link).  Consequently I knew little of him except for his poetry.  According to the brief biography, he was already known for his many fine essays, critiques, and writings in natural history, when he met Robert Frost in 1914 who encouraged Thomas to write poetry.  Thomas took his advice and had produced many fine poems when, unfortunately, he was killed in action in WWI in 1917.

Therefore, I was surprised to find him in Nature Writing: The English Tradition, another of the unexpected authors in that anthology whom I had known from other genres.  The following comes from the excerpt found in that anthology, and I can see why Frost had encouraged him to write poetry.


"At the lower margin of the wood the overhanging branches form blue caves, and out of these emerge the songs of many hidden birds.  I know that there are bland melodious blackbirds of easy musing voices, robins whose earnest song, though full of passion, is but a fragment that has burst through a more passionate silence, hedge-sparrows of liquid confiding monotone, brisk acid wrens, chaffinches and yellowhammers saying always the same thing ( a dear but courtly praise of the coming season), larks building spires above spires into the sky, thrushes of infinite variety that talk and talk of a thousand things, never thinking, always talking of the moment, exclaiming, scolding, cheering, flattering, coaxing, challenging, with merry-hearted, bold voices that must have been the same in the morning of the world when the forest trees lay, or leaned, or hung, where they fell.  Yet I can distinguish neither blackbird, nor robin, nor hedge-sparrow, nor any one voice.  All are blent into one seething stream of song.  It is one song, not many.  It is the spirit that sings.  Mixed with them is the myriad stir of unborn things, of leaf and blade and flower, many silences of heart and root of tree, voices of hope and growth, of love that will be satisfied though it leap upon the swords of life." 

Edward Thomas (1878-1917)
"Hampshire"
from The South Country
Excerpt comes from Nature Writing, edited by Robert Finch and John Elder 


What do you think?  Is there something "poetic" about the above excerpt?  Was Frost being perceptive?

Edward Thomas: First Known When Lost

The title of this poem provided the name for Stephen Pentz'  blog,  "First Known When Lost."  I recommend that you visit it, if you haven't already discovered it.  It's listed in my blog list in the column to the right.  A click will get you quickly there.  It was Stephen who first introduced me to Edward Thomas' poetry in any sustained way.  Thank you.



First known when lost

 I never had noticed it until
'Twas gone, --the narrow copse
Where now the woodman lops
The last of the willows with his bill.

I was not mre than a hedge overgrown.
One meadow's beadth away
I passed it day by day.
Now the soil is bare as a bone,

And black betwixt two meadows green,
Though fresh-cut faggot ends
Of hazel make some amends
With a gleam as if flowers they had been.

Strange it could have hidden so near!
And now I see as I look
That the small winding brook,
A tributary's tributary, rises there.

-- Edward Thomas --
Edward Thomas:  The Annotated Collected Poems
Edited by Edna Longley 


There seems a touch of irony here for he discovers two things.  The first is the copse that he never noticed until it was gone, and now its absence allows him to discover the source of that small winding brook.  


"A tributary's tributary". 

A "tributary" can be a small river or stream or brook that flows into another river, but not into a sea or ocean.  Perhaps this tells us that the brook flows into another stream that is also a tributary of another.  A "tributary" can also mean  paying something to another to acknowledge submission, to obtain protection, or to purchase peace.    I wonder if Thomas is being ambiguous here. 

Edward Thomas: The Unknown Bird

I must admit I know little about Edward Thomas, except that he was a friend of Robert Frost, which definitely is a plus for him.  I was only exposed to him in the past few years because of Stephen Pentz whose blog is First Known When Lost.    His blog focuses on poetry and art that corresponds to or illuminates the poem(s) that he presents.  You can easily find his blog by checking the right side of this blog and moving down to the section that contains blogs I follow.   I would very highly recommend a visit to First Known When Lost, which happens to be the title of a poem by Edward Thomas.

I guess my way of going through a book of poetry is a bit unusual.  I can't start at page one and slowly work my way through the poems one-by-one.  Instead,  I skim through the poems, looking for one that jumps out at me.  I stop there and read it several times.  I then let it simmer in my unconscious for awhile and then go back to it.  Sometimes I can figure out why this one or that one moves me, but frequently I can't: it just grabs me.  This is the first one that jumped out at me.



The Unknown Bird

Three lovely notes he whistled, too softly to be heard
If others sang; but others never sang
In the great beech-wood all that May and June.
No one saw him: I alone could hear him
Though many listened.  Was it but four years
Ago?  or five?  He never came again.

Oftenest when I heard him I was alone,
Nor could I ever make another hear.
La-la-la! he called, seeming far-off --
As if a cock crowed past the edge of the world,
As if the bird or I were in a dream.
Yet that he traveled through the trees and sometimes
Neared me, was plain, though somehow distant still
He sounded.  All the proof is -- I told men
What I had heard.

                            I never knew a voice,
Man, beast, or bird, better than this.  I told
The naturalists; but neither had they heard
Anything like the notes that did so haunt me,
I had them clear by heart, and have them still.
Four years, or five, have made no difference.  Then
As now that La-la-la! was bodiless sweet:
Sad more than joyful it was, if I must say
That it was one or the other, but if sad
'Twas sad only with joy too, too far off
For me to taste it.   But I cannot tell
If truly anything but fair
The days were when he sang, as now they seem.
This surely I know, that I who listened then,
Happy sometimes, sometimes suffering
A heavy body and a heavy heart,
Now straightaway, if I think of it, become
Light as that bird wandering beyond my shore.

-- Edward Thomas --
The Annotated Collected Poems


"As if a cock crowed past the edge of the world,"
and
"Light as that bird wandering beyond my shore."


Does this suggest some sort of mystical experience? No one else could hear the bird sing, nor could any naturalist identify it.



"bodiless sweet"

There, but not there?   Insubstantial?


Perhaps it is best to forget the analysis and to simply experience and enjoy the poem.