THE First World War is much in the public mind at the moment.
Among Scots who addressed it in poetry was John Buchan, perhaps best known for his sophisticated thrillers. Here is the opening part of his tribute to his brother Alastair, killed at Arras in April 1917 (as was yesterday's poet, Edward Thomas).
ALASTAIR BUCHAN (1917)
A mile or two from Arras town
The yellow moorland stretches far,
And from its crest the roads go down
Like arrows to the front of war.
All day the laden convoys pass,
The sunburned troops are swinging by,
And far above the trampled grass
The droning planes climb up the sky.
In April when I passed that way
An April joy was in the breeze;
The hollows of the woods were gay
With slender-stalked anemones.
The Horn of Spring was faintly blown,
Bidding a ransomed world awake,
Nor could the thobbing batteries drown
The nesting linnets in the brake.
And as I stood beside the grave,
Where 'mid your kindly Scots you lie,
I could not think tha tone so brave,
So glad of heart, so kind of eye,
Had found the deep and dreamless rest,
Which men may crave who bears the scars
Of weary decades on their breast,
And yearn for slumber after wars.
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