Ledwidge Killed

 

Ledwidge killed

blown to bits

died in a hole

with some other poor twits

bad things happen

when you fight for the Brits

better luck next time,

Ledwidge

 

Francis Ledwidge (19 August 1887—31 July 1917) was an Irish poet from Janeville in Slane, Co. Meath. He began his career as a poet in the rural or pastoral style of the time but is known today primarily as a war poet. Ledwidge was a nationalist, a member of the Irish Volunteers, and a supporter of Home Rule. In spite of this, at the outbreak of World War I, he enlisted with the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. This was against the advice of his friend and patron Lord Dunsany (Edward Plunkett), who offered to support him and his writing if he refused to join the war effort. ( Plunkett himself was a Captain in the Fusiliers.) Ledwidge insisted that his enlistment was for the protection of Ireland, though it has been suggested that he was at least partially motivated by having been left for another man by his girlfriend.

During the War, another conflict broke out at home in the form of the 1916 Easter Rising. According to Wikipedia, Ledwidge was “dismayed by the news of the Easter Rising and court-martialed and demoted for overstaying his home leave and being drunk in uniform.”  (Plunkett (Dunsany) himself, being a reserve officer in the Fusiliers, fought against the Irish rebels and was wounded.)

“Ledwidge continued to write during the war years…sending much of his output to Lord Dunsany…as well as family, friends, and literary contacts.”

“On 31 July, 1917, a group from Ledwidge’s battalion…were road-laying in preparation for an assault during the Third Battle of Ypres, near the village of Boezinge, northwest of Ieper (Ypres). While Ledwidge was drinking tea in a mud-hole with his comrades, a shell exploded alongside, killing the poet and five others. A chaplain who knew him, Father Devas, arrived soon after and recorded, “Ledwidge killed, blown to bits.” ”

 

I’m a bit ashamed to say that before writing this post I had read only two of Ledwidge’s poems, and those a very long time ago. One of them is “Lament for Thomas MacDonagh”, which I highly recommend. (MacDonagh was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising and was executed by the British.)  Here for your perusal is another:

 

Lament for the Poets: 1916

by Francis Ledwidge

 

I heard the Poor Old Woman say:

“At break of day the fowler came,

And took my blackbirds from their songs

Who loved me well thro’ shame and blame

 

No more from lovely distances

Their songs shall bless me mile by mile,

Nor to white Ashbourne call me down

To wear my crown another while

 

With bended flowers the angels mark

For the skylark the place they lie,

From there it’s little family

Shall dip their wings first in the sky.

 

And when the first surprise of flight

Sweet songs excite, from the far dawn

Shall there come blackbirds loud with love,

Sweet echoes of the singers gone

 

But in the lovely hush of eve

Weeping I grieve the silent bills”

I heard the Poor Old Woman say

In Derry of the little hills