Sunday Poetry - Marion Allen

Another poem from Catherine Reilly's anthology. There's no information about Marian Allen in the biographical notes in the book so she remains elusive. This poem, The Wind on the Downs, was published in a collection of the same name in 1918. Maybe her poetry was an isolated response to her grief & she wrote nothing else. Or, maybe, she was unable to get anything else published. I like the expression of quiet melancholy & grief addressed to the loved one, it's very moving.

I like to think of you as brown and tall,
As strong and living as you used to be,
In khaki tunic, Sam Brown belt and all,
And standing there and laughing down at me,
Because they tell me, dear, that you are dead,
Because I can no longer see your face,
You have not died, it is not true, instead
You seek adventure in some other place.
That you are round about me, I believe;
I hear you laughing as you used to do,
Yet loving all the things I think of you;
And knowing you are happy, should I grieve?
You follow and are watchful where I go;
How should you leave me, having loved me so?

We walked along the tow-path, you and I,
Beside the sluggish-moving, still canal;
It seemed impossible that you should die;
I think of you the same and always shall.
We thought of many things and spoke of few,
and life lay all uncertainly before,
and now I walk alone and think of you,
And wonder what new kingdoms you explore.
Over the railway line, across the grass,
While up above the golden wings are spread,
Flying, ever flying overhead,
Here still I see your khaki figure pass,
And when I leave the meadow, almost wait
That you should open first the wooden gate.

Sunday Poetry - Mabel Esther Allan

This is a wonderful anthology of women's war poetry. It's a combined edition of two earlier books edited by Catherine Reilly - Scars Upon My Heart (poetry of WWI ) & Chaos of the Night (poetry of WWII ). I've often dipped into it but I was surprised to come across this poem by Mabel Esther Allan. I knew her as a novelist - I've reviewed two of her books, Murder at the Flood & Margaret Finds a Future, & I have a couple more books on the tbr shelves thanks to the Greyladies reprints. I didn't know that she wrote poetry. Immensity was written in late 1940, the time of the Battle of Britain & expresses the fears of those left behind when their loved ones are on a mission.

You go at night into immensity,
Leaving this green earth, where hawthorn flings
Pale stars on hedgerows, and our serenity
Is twisted into strange shapes; my heart never sings
Now on spring mornings, for you fly at nightfall
From this earth I know
Toward the clear stars, and over all
Those dark seas and waiting towns you go;
And when you come to me
There are fearful dreams in your eyes,
And remoteness. Oh, God! I see
How far away you are,
Who may so soon meet death beneath an alien star.