"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY SWAMP!?"

“The Battle of the Swamps” by Muriel Elsie Graham

Across the blinded lowlands the beating rain blows chill,
The trenched earth turns to water, the shell-holes ooze and fill,
A tragic land where little that’s sweet or sane survives –
O hungry swamps of Flanders that swallow up men’s lives!

O numbing nights of Flanders, whose cold breath cannot quench
The grim enduring courage that holds each mud-fouled trench,
That struggles stiffly forward to meet the shattering guns –
O bitter swamps of Flanders that rob us of our sons!

Yet in the sheltered homeland that lies such worlds away,
What shrinking hearts are braving that suffocating clay!
And when on roof and window the rain beats, then – O then,
O deathless swamps of Flanders, our hearts are with our men.

A picture of Muriel Elsie Graham.

Unfortunately for WWI soldiers, they were not Shrek, a semi-friendly, swamp-inhabiting ogre.  Unfortunately for me, Muriel Elsie Graham is a female poet, so not much is known about her. Virtually the only information I can find about Graham is the above picture.* From that photo, that I assume is her but cannot verify, she seems to have been a nurse in the First World War. That would put her near battle, and she certainly would have seen injured men during the war and been familiar with battlefield conditions. Even without knowing much about the author, there are still a few big takeaways from this poem.

The third time I read it, I realized Graham never mentions enemy soldiers like so many other WWI poems. This surprised me, because I automatically used enemy combatants in my first interpretation, but their absence is actually incredibly significant. “The Battle of the Swamps” reads like a description of battle. It talks about “swallowing up men’s lives” and “enduring courage” and “tragic land.” Phrases like that make me think about fighting an enemy, but it’s not the German’s that Graham writes about. It’s the swamps, and by extension. the environmental conditions of the battlefield. She describes “beating rain,” “numbing nights,” and the “mud-fouled trench.” These conditions are the enemy; this is what kills the soldiers.

To emphasize that point, I did some outside research into what battlefield and trench conditions looked like in WWI.  In class, we have talked about flooding trenches and battlefields that were atop swamps, but seeing it strikes a different chord.  I collected some pictures below.

The conditions at Flanders, the location
referenced in the poem.

A man in the trenches.  The man-made holes became
their own swamps.

Soldiers carrying the wounded through mud
at Passchendaele. 

Additionally, here is a link to an interesting article about the conditions at Passchendaele, a battle infamous for its terrible mud. 

Also, this article contains a map and timeline of the battle of Passchendaele that includes information about when it rained worst and the flooded areas.

Another part of the poem that I would like to highlight is the final stanza, where readers are taken away from the battlefield and to the homeland (probably England). Since this poem is authored by a woman, this change in scenery makes complete sense. Graham says “when on roof and window the rain beats… our hearts are with our men.” I think these two lines are very powerful and express an idea shared by many women: they are suffering through the war too. However, she also captures the nuance of that statement in a previous line when she describes the homeland as “sheltered.” She recognizes that the people at home are not suffering the way soldiers are, but that they aren’t exactly having a grand time either.

The final part of the poem I will touch on is the repeated pattern of the final line of each stanza. “Hungry swamps” that “swallow up men’s lives” is self-explanatory and accurate, but interestingly, it personifies the swamps and makes them feel more like an actual enemy. The second stanza ends with “bitter swamps… that rob us of our sons.” Again this personifies the swamps, almost demonizing them.  Then, it is the last stanza that confuses me.  It says “deathless swamps… our hearts are with our men.” The last words, I talked about previously, but it is the deathless swamps line that really, really confused me.

I think I puzzled it out but would love to hear other perspectives. Deathless means without death, but more specifically means being immortal. Rather than reading that line to mean that no one dies in the swamps, I think this is saying that swamps and the men who died there are an immortal fixture in the hearts and minds of the English at home.

*https://allpoetry.com/Muriel-Elsie-Graham

Past, Present, and Future: An Analysis of "Ballad of the Three Spectres" by Ivor Gurney

"Ballad of the Three Spectres" by Ivor Gurney

As I went up by Ovillers
In mud and water cold to the knee,
There went three jeering, fleering spectres,
That walked abreast and talked of me.

The first said, ‘Here’s a right brave soldier
That walks the dark unfearingly;
Soon he’ll come back on a fine stretcher,
And laughing for a nice Blighty.’

The second, ‘Read his face, old comrade,
No kind of lucky chance I see;
One day he’ll freeze in mud to the marrow,
Then look his last on Picardie.’

Though bitter the word of these first twain
Curses the third spat venomously;
‘He’ll stay untouched till the war’s last dawning
Then live one hour of agony.’

Liars the first two were. Behold me
At sloping arms by one – two – three;
Waiting the time I shall discover
Whether the third spake verity.



Even before the Great War, Ivor Gurney was not well. He suffered from manic-depression and had experienced a nervous breakdown, but he still went off to fight. Though he survived through the end of the war, in 1922 he was institutionalized before dying 15 years later of tuberculosis. Through it all, Gurney continued to write poetry and compose music, including “Ballad of the Three Spectres.”*

Ivor Gurney

A ballad is a form of poetry that tells a story in a series of stanzas (2 or more) that are able to be put to music and sung. Though this poem was not put to music like some of Gurney’s other works, this piece certainly tells a story.*

When I first read “The Ballad of the Three Spectres” I thought immediately of three Fates in the Disney movie Hercules.  

The Fates in Hercules who all share a single eye.

Of course, the legend of the Fates did not originate from an animated Disney film but from Greek mythology. According to myth, the Fates (or Moirai) are three female spinners who control the destiny of mortals, spinning the string of each person’s life and cutting it when it is time for them to die. Atropos represents the past, Clotho the present, and Lachesis the future.** A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is another famous literary work that tells a story through three mystical beings.

A more traditional interpretation of the three Fates
spinning the yarn of someone's life.

In Gurney’s poem, the idea of the Fates and overall tone seems to suggest a lack of control over one’s own future, and I think he was trying to convey the lack of control soldiers felt about their prospects while fighting in the war.

Diving deeper into the poem reveals more meaning. Starting in the second stanza, each spectre is given its own voice. The first seems to be commending Gurney’s bravery, but likely the spectre actually speaks in a sarcastic tone because of his references to blighty wounds. These were injuries bad enough to get a soldier sent home but not kill or seriously maim.^ Such injuries could be self-inflicted, intentionally done to survive. The spectre is saying that perhaps Gurney will do the cunning and cowardly thing to survive the war.

Then, the second spectre presents an outlook that is even bleaker, suggesting that the author will freeze to death in the mud. In other words, one fate for a soldier is to be a coward and the other is to die. It’s not a great outlook, but there’s still one other possibility. Maybe spectre three has something positive to say?

Actually, the final is the cruelest of them all, saying “‘He’ll stay untouched till the war’s last dawning/Then live one hour of agony.’” This probably refers to a common fear of surviving until the end of the war only to die, slowly, in the final days.^

These statements all relate back to the Fates as the past, present, and future. The first spectre (past) discusses blighty wounds. Gurney was wounded twice in the war, meaning at some point he was taken out of combat before returning. In a sense, blighty wounds are his past. The second Fate (present) talks about the cold and dying while in the trenches. If Gurney wrote this poem while in the trenches, he was talking about a very present fear. The final, however, looks to the future. The war has not yet reached an end. The last stanza provides an open-ended conclusion to the ballad, where Gurney must wait to see if what the third spectre says about the future is true.

In my first reading, before doing prior research, I read the words of the last spectre to have a different meaning than I discussed above. While not as literal, I took the words to mean Gurney could survive the war, only to live the rest of his life tortured by it. I really like this idea because it adds a mystical air to the piece where the spectres prediction does come true. Gurney is haunted by the war, and that combined with his other mental illnesses causes him to be institutionalized.

However you interpret this poem, I think there is an overarching theme that for soldiers there is no good fate in war, not that they really get to control their destiny anyway.


*https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/ivor-gurney
**https://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/The_Fates/the_fates.htmlhttps://www.greekmythology.com/Other_Gods/The_Fates/the_fates.html
^https://movehimintothesun.com/2011/04/22/ballad-of-the-three-spectres-ivor-gurney/

One Day More "Before the Battle:" An Analysis of Martin Armstrong's Poem

Like the musical Les Miserables, “Before the Battle” by Martin Armstrong tells a long story about youth going off to battle and facing death. Armstrong was a soldier in France during the war. He was born in 1882, so he would have been about 33 when he was commissioned. Interestingly, he survived the war by several decades, not dying until 1974.*

A picture of Martin Armstrong.

When I first read Armstrong’s poem (which you can read here), I thought immediately of the song “One Day More” from Les Mis. Though the musical is set in a different time and conflict, this song sets the same stage as the poem. It describes the time before the battle, men who are really boys are readying themselves to fight and enjoying the last few hours of their life.

“Before the Battle” opens on a somber note, describing the mole-like life soldiers in the trenches live and the dead land that surrounds them. It is gloomy but “memory like the rose” provides an escape. Those memories are of another life these men once led where they frolicked by rivers and enjoyed time with friends. To understand this poem one does not really need to read into the text, however, analyzing the flashback portion of the poem provides a few interesting insights.

First and foremost is the symbolism of water and the river where the men are swimming. One of the first things I learned in English class is that water and rivers are symbolic of life, a connection that highlights the lifelike and vibrant nature of these young men before going into battle. The choice of a river is interesting for another reason though. Here water is indicative of life and a positive element of the memory while at the beginning of the poem (and the end) the trenches are “waterlogged.” In WWI, water flooded trenches and made life miserable for the people in them, so it is important to note the irony that the same thing that made men so happy in one situation makes like miserable in the trenches.

Another repeated element is the willow tree. That took a little more research, but eventually I found that the willow tree, like water, represents life. It also relates to adaptability and survival since willow trees are famously resilient.** They are the epitome of bend don’t break, a necessary quality in a good soldier.

A willow tree by water.  Sometimes these trees are
portrayed as motherly and protective, like in the
Disney film Pocahontas.

Unfortunately, the happy memory in the poem concludes with the bugle calling the men to action where they form orderly rows. The individuality is gone. Bert, who dived into the river in the last stanza is just another member of the party of men. And then the memory is shattered fully when Armstrong tells us that these men “lie in narrow chambers underground.” They are dead.  Just like the opening of this poem reminded me of “One Day More” from Les Miserables, this section reminds me of the song “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables.”

Finally, the poem returns to the miserable setting described in the first stanza, emphasizing the terrible conditions of wet trenches and rainstorms.  Then it concludes with Armstrong asking for another day to enjoy “sun and leaves… and the laughing stream," but all that is only a memory.  Now is the time for battle.

*https://petersfraserdunlop.com/clients/martin-armstrong/
**https://treesymbolism.com/willow-tree-symbolism-meaning.html