Ford Madox Ford
I
GLOOM!
An October like November;
August a hundred thousand hours,
And all September,
A hundred thousand, dragging sunlit days,
And half October like a thousand years . . .
And doom!
That then was Antwerp. . .
In the name of God,
How could they do it?
Those souls that usually dived
Into the dirty caverns of mines;
Who usually hived
In whitened hovels; under ragged poplars;
Who dragged muddy shovels, over the grassy mud,
Lumbering to work over the greasy sods. . .
Those men there, with the appearance of clods
Were the bravest men that a usually listless priest of God
Ever shrived. . .
And it is not for us to make them an anthem.
If we found words there would come no wind that would fan them
To a tune that the trumpets might blow it,
Shrill through the heaven that’s ours or yet Allah’s,
Or the wide halls of any Valhallas.
We can make no such anthem. So that all that is ours
For inditing in sonnets, pantoums, elegiacs, or lays
Is this:
“In the name of God, how could they do it?”
II
For there is no new thing under the sun,
Only this uncomely man with a smoking gun
In the gloom. . .
What the devil will he gain by it?
Digging a hole in the mud and standing all day in the rain by it
Waiting his doom;
The sharp blow, the swift outpouring of the blood,
Till the trench of gray mud
Is turned to a brown purple drain by it.
Well, there have been scars
Won in many wars . . .
Punic,
Lacedæmonian, wars of Napoleon, wars for faith, wars for honour, for love, for possession,
But this Belgian man in his ugly tunic,
His ugly round cap, shooting on, in a sort of obsession,
Overspreading his miserable land,
Standing with his wet gun in his hand . . .
Doom!
He finds that in a sudden scrimmage,
And lies, an unsightly lump on the sodden grass . . .
An image that shall take long to pass!
III
For the white-limbed heroes of Hellas ride by upon their horses
Forever through our brains.
The heroes of Cressy ride by upon their stallions;
And battalions and battalions and battalions—
The Old Guard, the Young Guard, the men of Minden and of Waterloo,
Pass, for ever staunch,
Stand, for ever true;
And the small man with the large paunch,
And the gray coat, and the large hat, and the hands behind the back,
Watches them pass
In our minds for ever . . .
But that clutter of sodden corses
On the sodden Belgian grass—
That is a strange new beauty.
IV
With no especial legends of marchings or triumphs or duty,
Assuredly that is the way of it,
The way of beauty . . .
And that is the highest word you can find to say of it.
For you cannot praise it with words
Compounded of lyres and swords,
But the thought of the gloom and the rain
And the ugly coated figure, standing beside a drain,
Shall eat itself into your brain:
And you will say of all heroes, “They fought like the Belgians!”
And you will say: “He wrought like a Belgian his fate out of gloom.”
And you will say: “He bought like a Belgian his doom.”
And that shall be an honourable name;
“Belgian” shall be an honourable word;
As honourable as the fame of the sword,
As honourable as the mention of the many-chorded lyre,
And his old coat shall seem as beautiful as the fabrics woven in Tyre.
V
And what in the world did they bear it for?
I don’t know.
And what in the world did they dare it for?
Perhaps that is not for the likes of me to understand.
They could very well have watched a hundred legions go
Over their fields and between their cities
Down into more southerly regions.
They could very well have let the legions pass through their woods,
And have kept their lives and their wives and their children and cattle and goods.
I don’t understand.
Was it just love of their land?
Oh, poor dears!
Can any man so love his land?
Give them a thousand thousand pities
And rivers and rivers of tears
To wash off the blood from the cities of Flanders.
VI
This is Charing Cross;
It is midnight;
There is a great crowd
And no light.
A great crowd, all black that hardly whispers aloud.
Surely, that is a dead woman—a dead mother!
She has a dead face;
She is dressed all in black;
She wanders to the bookstall and back,
At the back of the crowd;
And back again and again back,
She sways and wanders.
This is Charing Cross;
It is one o’clock.
There is still a great cloud, and very little light;
Immense shafts of shadows over the black crowd
That hardly whispers aloud. . .
And now! . . That is another dead mother,
And there is another and another and another. . .
And little children, all in black,
All with dead faces, waiting in all the waiting-places,
Wandering from the doors of the waiting-room
In the dim gloom.
These are the women of Flanders.
They await the lost.
They await the lost that shall never leave the dock;
They await the lost that shall never again come by the train
To the embraces of all these women with dead faces;
They await the lost who lie dead in trench and barrier and foss,
In the dark of the night.
This is Charing Cross; it is past one of the clock;
There is very little light.
There is so much pain.
L’Envoi
And it was for this that they endured this gloom;
This October like November,
That August like a hundred thousand hours,
And that September,
A hundred thousand dragging sunlit days,
And half October like a thousand years. . .
Oh, poor dears!
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem, with its stark and harrowing depictions of war, grapples with the senselessness and brutal realities of conflict, particularly World War I. Its structure is fragmented and intense, shifting from bleak reflections on the suffering of soldiers and civilians to a grim portrait of loss, yet it carries a deep empathy for the victims of war, especially the Belgian soldiers and the women who lose their loved ones.
The first section of the poem begins with a heavy sense of gloom. The months stretch endlessly, with “October like November” and “August a hundred thousand hours.” Time is rendered infinite and agonizing, as if the war has stretched the calendar itself. The speaker reflects on the brave but humble soldiers who, despite their ordinary appearances—“with the appearance of clods”—show incredible courage. These men, who are not glorified heroes in the traditional sense, become symbols of the war’s tragic futility. The poem’s question, “How could they do it?” reverberates through the entire work, underscoring the speaker’s disbelief and sorrow at the brutality of the conflict.
In the second section, the speaker contrasts the war-torn reality with the ancient valor of warriors from history—those who fought in classical battles or for noble causes. The “white-limbed heroes of Hellas” and the soldiers of Cressy, Waterloo, and Minden, stand in stark contrast to the “ugly coated figure” of the Belgian soldier, whose fate is far less glamorous. The modern soldier, “standing beside a drain,” becomes an “unsightly lump on the sodden grass,” a stark image of the war’s senseless waste. There is no honor in this war, no glory in dying; just a grim end marked by mud and death. The tragic beauty of these soldiers lies not in any grand triumph but in their quiet, relentless suffering. The poem implies that their struggle, though seemingly pointless, carries a strange, new kind of heroism.
In the third section, the speaker reflects on the loss of traditional heroism. The classical images of warriors on horseback or marching in triumph are overshadowed by the “sodden corpses” in the mud of Belgium. This “strange new beauty,” the poem suggests, is born from the raw, unvarnished reality of death in the trenches, a beauty devoid of romanticism or celebration. There is no song or legend to immortalize these men; their struggle is instead memorialized in the squalor and agony they endured.
As the poem continues, the speaker wrestles with the question of why these soldiers fought and endured such suffering. Was it love of their land? The poem seems to doubt that any man could love his country enough to sacrifice so much, suggesting that their endurance was less about patriotic fervor and more about some deeper, incomprehensible force driving them. The speaker questions their actions, yet at the same time, the lines convey a deep sense of pity for these soldiers and their plight, leaving the question unanswered, as if to suggest that the truth is too painful or elusive to grasp.
The fourth section shifts focus to the women left behind, those who “await the lost,” waiting for their sons, husbands, and lovers who will never return. The scene at Charing Cross station is haunting, with the “dead faces” of mothers and children wandering aimlessly, waiting for those who will never come back. These women, though not on the battlefield, are casualties of war in their own right, living with the endless grief of losing loved ones. The repeated image of “dead mothers” and “children in black” emphasizes the deep, irreversible impact of war on families. The pain is not just for the soldiers who die, but for the women left behind, bearing the weight of loss in silence.
The final section of the poem revisits the long, torturous passage of time, emphasizing the cyclical nature of war. The months drag on endlessly, stretching the suffering, making it feel as though the war has no end. This relentless passage of time only amplifies the hopelessness and futility the speaker feels about the war.
The poem concludes with the phrase “Oh, poor dears!” It is a final, sorrowful acknowledgment of the senselessness of the conflict and the devastation it has caused. The speaker expresses empathy for the soldiers who fought, the mothers who waited, and the land that bore the brunt of the war. It is a lament for the innocent lives destroyed in the pursuit of something that cannot be fully understood or justified.
This work, with its bleakness and grim reflections, is less about glorifying sacrifice and more about capturing the devastating emotional and physical toll that war takes on everyone involved. There are no heroes in the traditional sense, no triumphs of courage—only a deep and enduring suffering that stretches time and space. It is a poem about the unspoken grief of war, one that lingers long after the guns fall silent.