Some time ago I came across a most wonderful book, called, ‘Songs from a Campaign’, by Leon Gellert. This book was an amazing find for the AGWP collection, and it is filled with poems and art from arguably Australia’s best war poet (Leon Gellert) and war artist (Norman Lindsay). Lindsay’s artwork is drawn for Gellert’s poems, and they are most evocative and brilliant pieces of art. When the two come together, as they do in this book, a certain marriage of poetry and art is formed. It a strange way, we might observe that the marriage of these two forms of expression is poetry itself.
The artwork is done in such a way that the reading of the poems becomes somehow even more alive for the reader. It is such a shame that all of Gellert's 80 poems from the collection don't have their own pictures, but only 16 of them.
The epitome of what Arthur St. John Adcock describes as the "seamy" representation of war can be found in the writing of Leon Gellert, who was "terribly conscious of that revolting, inglorious underside of war." In "Songs of a Campaign" he chose to depict the effects of warfare on the men who fought. His war poetry portrays grit, disillusionment and "the piteous wreckage of humanity" in verses about the ordeal of the soldier such as "The Attack at Dawn" and "Before Action," or the after effects of war in "The Cripple," or "The Blind Man." In fact, his writing is emblematic of the disillusionment that extended warfare brought, and similar in tone (if less satiric) to that of the British poet Siegfried Sassoon. This type of anti-romantic war poetry was one of the great revelations of the First World War. Where, in the past, an idealistic language of noble and heroic battle had dominated war writing, the First World War was said to have shattered notions of heroism. St. John Adcock attributes this shift of perspective to the mass conscription of the Great War, where armies consisted of recruits rather than professional soldiers.
Many poets and artists draw inspiration from each other. They feed off each other and they inspire each other, but they rarely form such a connection with each other as Gellert and Lindsay did. Gellert's poetry certainly stands alone and requires no assistance in the delivery of its image. Lindsay's artwork likewise stands on its own as evocative and intense. However, when it was decided to join these two great Australian artists together, something quite special was born. Poetry and art at their finest, has produced a lasting image of the Great War. Shocking, ghastly and most certainly evocative, these 16 works show a terrible and horrifying glimpse at the war to end all wars. Through Gellert's words and Lindsay's pictures, the work forms a shocking study of mankind's decent into despair.
The poet and the artist seem perfectly matched to each other, and it would seem that all which is now needed is the music to go with them. The 16 works of art are so utterly suited to the poems that it is hard to see which was done first. Perhaps they were done at the same time, we might say, but they are surely evocative and emotional together, and each one of them forces the reader to think soberly and hard about the subject. It is certainly a marriage of two arts, and there seems to be none better to represent each art than Gellert, the poet, and Lindsay, the artist.
So, the following 16 poems are the product of Lindsayan art and Gellertean poetry, which form a marriage of tremendous experience. I recommend reading through them slowly and looking at the pictures which accompanies them. Think about what you have read while you look at the picture, and keep in mind the context of the war itself, which inspired both poet and artist; both Gellert and Lindsay.
Ease. 1914
The iron is hidden in forgetfulness.
A smoothness comes to men and lies on lands.
Women of peace arise in lustred dress,
and hold aloft their sleek and perfect hands.
the birds are in the morn, the bees in the noon.
The eve has song and sleep and slow repose.
A lazy Ease treads soft on feathered shoon
that leaves no sign to show the way she goes.
Soft cheeks there are; and Guile with coiling hair
smiles at the earth and croons within her chair.
The slow leaves fall, and rustling Night begins
Her reign of furriness. the slinking feet
Of half-seen things and thoughts bring brushing sins
and warmths of fog that touch a smouldering heat.
The Moving of the Shades
The black revolving depths have moved and stirred
with news. their Lord has cried. "Send these, and these."
Swift feet awake. Shapes speed. The dreadful word
resounds along the tunnels of the seas.
Sly Falsehood comes, with Sin and Flattery,
and long toothed Fear runs shrieking by the wall.
Face-hidden Sorrow follows Cruelty,
and peering Jealousy grown over-tall
Slobbering Lust is there, asmear with slime,
and Vice's ushers from the Uttermost;
Comes painted Pleasure, somewhat fat with time;
and Murder takes his place amid the host.
thronewardds they stand and gazzee, the Foull Voice screams.
"Invoke this God! Go hand in hand with dreams?"
The Advice of Treachery
This well-feigned trance, this still and stupored sleep
is aptly timed, and nobly fits the scheme.
The cloud-encircled Sword with Night may creep
Beside the gates, and catch the world adream,
Snatching as life before the sluggish breath
Awakes to morning and to vultured death,
Till Craft appeared, the blunted Grecian spears
That scratched at Troy, and all the blistered hands
That tore at stones and prayed upon the sands
Were weak and vain, and vain the bloody years.
Oh, let the winds take up the heavy tones
Of sleeping. Move within a mist! Shun light!
Then swing the hidden weapon once, and smite,
And gaze with laughter on the slaughtered throne.
Murder
Upon the threshold, red-eyed Murder stands,
Fresh from his slaughter-house of human meat,
Blood on his broken teeth and on his hands,
Blood on his nails and on his purple feet.
With hollow voice he speaks, and sick'ning breath,
'A way there is, that only way is death!….
The dead will rise no more,-the dead are dead!
The spared will creep behind the sparer's back,
And breathe their plots and stab. The dead are dead!
And lie along the safe triumphal track.
The young-eyed babe, will lisp it's little tales.
The loving girl will slay her main in bed
Kissing his savage mouth, the victor fails
At Mercy's seat. The dead are safely dead'.
The Invocation of Jealousy
The conquered world is bowed and worshipful,
And lovely Peace smooth-gowned in lightest grey
Cries, "War is Dead' and treads upon it's skull.
While silken women walk their rosy way
Sneering at swords, and tittering at deeds,
And kicking relics with their pearl-shod feet,
Saying with mirth, "The body never bleeds.
Old Mars is corpsed beneath great Bacchus' seat."
Young Mothers tell their babies of rusted spears
Of timid wolves, long fled to northern skies,
Of priests that sang of March in olden years,
And died in May with vain, despairing eyes,
The world is soothed with olive-juice and wine,
And spits upon the Quirinalian shrine.
The Influence of Lust
With padded feet from out his own dark den
Comes smiling Lust, once fair and hard to please,
But now long overworked with dabbling men,
Who cry, "We've tasted this and tired of these.'
Pausing in doubt, suspecting some defence,
He stares with eyes blue-lidded, at the Shape,
Then stooping, whispers low of innocence,
Of waiting chastity and sweetest rape.
With hairless hands awave, lisps reeking tales
'Mid smothered sighs, acquivering the while
he sees a horrored frown and fears he fails,
But smiling much whene'er he sees a smile.
Then pressing, 'Flesh is this, they needed food,'
And, 'Flesh is warmest in its stolen blood.'
The Coming of War. 1915
Strong from the hills it comes, and flowing rivers;
Swift from the waters of the rising seas;
Swift on the chilling heart that waits and quivers
With a terror of hideousies.
Behind grey mist it comes, and creeping cloud
That licks the fading earth with foetid breath.
From plains it comes, and silent lakes – a shroud
That holds unloosed the damned brigades of death.
It sweeps and passes. Everything is dead-
Broken with foulness-ravished as it bled!
A blow, a weeping! Then a silence lies.
Faint bells low-tinkling from the bloody sod
Rise from the depths of heart, and touch the skies,
And murmur at the very stairs of God.
The Trumpets of Heaven. 1916
A silver cry is calling from a height
Leaving the awful pause that follows song,
And through the silence shines a stretching light-
A stretching light that quietly runs along
The path of stars, and pierces cloud on cloud.
Pure things in space across the guiltless sky
Rustle with wings that bear in flight the proud
Revenge of God, with God's intensity.
Among the lighted ways-to move unheard,-
A great-unseen assembly seems to shine
To gather silently in line on line,
And wait and wait for some expected word,
A call on the height! And from the blinding skies
Come white battalions with their blinding eyes.
The Old and the New
Mars! Mars!
Thy clashing sword was keen
And glittering with stars.
Thine armour sheen
Shone to the terrored sky,
And o’er the bodies of thy foes
With open blows
Didst step to victory.
War! War!
They hidden horrors sound
And echo from afar.
Upon the ground
Thou liest now in fear
To wait the cunning chance
To thrust thy lance,
And hurl thy poisoned spear.
Dreams of France
Oh, dreams of France! Oh, faded dreams of France!
Ohm France, that I had ever dreamed of thee!
I thought to help thee bear thy brandished lance,
But, lo, I sail the blue Aegean sea!
Sweet thought of thee sill stand before mine eyes
While I lie fettered in this stagnant cage;
Unseen by me the golden Grecian skies,
Forgotten is the Grecian Golden Age.
Drear and dank this stale Ionian bark,
That plods its path alone Aegean ways.
Could I but see old Homer, tall and dark,
And hear the battle-laughter of his lays!
Farewell, oh France! Farewell, thou tortured West!
Bear strong thy shield above thine outraged breast.
These Men
Men moving in a trench, in the clear noon,
Whetting their steel within the crumbling earth;
Men, moving in a trench ‘neath a new moon
That smiles with a slit mouth and has no mirth;
Men moving in a trench in the grey morn,
Lifting bodies on their clotted frames:
Men with narrow mouths thin-carved in scorn
That twist and fumble strangely at dead names.
These men know life – know death a little more.
These men see paths and ends, and see
Beyond some swinging open door
Into eternity.
The Jester in the Trench
"That just reminds me of a yarn," he said;
And everybody turned to hear his tale.
He had a thousand yarns inside his head.
They waited for him, ready with their mirth
And creeping smiles, - then suddenly turned pale,
Grew still, and gazed upon the earth.
They heard no tale. No further word was said.
And with his untold fun,
Half leaning on his gun,
They left him - dead.
Sights
I saw a singer singing to a crowd,-
Singing of laughing life,- and all the while
He sang in tones so shrilly loud,
Not one man had a smile.
I saw a fiddler from a broken plain
Playing his weeping fiddle,- sweet and clear.
He sang of Death and Cries and Pain,-
But no one shed a tear.
I saw a whistling soldier, still and wan,
Firing his rifle from a fearful place,-
But all the time a dying man
Looked long upon his face.
The Blind Man
Within a corner of this windowed room
He sits, and seldom speaks, and seldom moves.
Forever left within eternal gloom,
He thinks of those he left, and those he loves.
The clouds were his, the colours of the day,
The purple mists, the deepest shades of blue,
The yellow flames, the stars, the milky way,
And smiles and frowns, and stretching moonlight too.
He knew the sun upon the eastern sea,
And watched it set behind a western hill.
He saw the depth of waters, - space, - the free
Ascent of birds. All these he knew until
The bursting shell. And now, as life is long,
He sits alone, and whistles some old song.
Patience
Red! Red! Red!
Is there no black?
Red like the bloody earth, this pack!
Knaves! Kings! Queens!- all red!
Where are the black?
Shuffle again!
Will not the other cards come back?
The only cards to clear the brain!
Dear God, ‘twill crack!
Shuffle again!
Red! Red! Red!
Black! Black! Black!
Is there no red?
Has all the blood on earth been shed?
Each Queen! Each King! and every Jack!
Where are the red?
Shuffle again!
Has blood within the world all bled?
The millions mourning for the slain?
The million dead?
Shuffle again!
Black! Black! Black!
The Change
Last year I heard the songs of birds,
And heard the trumpets of the bees.
I caught the winding river’s words,
And clutched at leaves of trees.
I heard the gales upon the height;
And heard each frightened windy rush,
I lay within the sultry night,
Eaves-dropping in the bush.
But now I walk within a town,
And hear the slyness of its feet.
Great cruel things stride up and down
Within a shady street.
I see quick things with ugly nails,
And hear their low half-smothered cries.
I hear men tell strange trembling tales
With big beseeching eyes.
I do not hear the singing bough.
I hear soft murders in a lane,
I do not feel the bush-call, now
I feel my brother’s pain.
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