11.11

Of the 'war poets' of the Great War, Edward Thomas is the least overt. His subject is not 'War, and the pity of War', but it was the war that made him a poet, by freeing him from relentless hack work and giving him the time to develop his poetic talent – and it was the war that took his life, all too soon. In his late poems, the war is often a presence, as is, increasingly, the prospect of death, but it is not often mentioned openly. An exception is this tender little poem –A PrivateThis ploughman dead in battle slept out of doorsMany a frosty night, and merrilyAnswered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores:'At Mrs Greenland's Hawthorn Bush,' said he,'I slept.' None knew which bush. Above the town,Beyond 'The Drover', a hundred spot the downIn Wiltshire. And where now at last he sleepsMore sound in France—that, too, he secret keeps. In his brief time at the front, Thomas kept a diary/notebook. These are the last notes he made:'The light of the new moon and every star–––––And no…

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