BY MICHAEL BRESLIN
Few readers of an older generation at school would have heard of the works of Francis Ledwidge, one of a handful of poets who perished in the muddy fields of France and Belgium during World War One.
That deficit had nothing to do with the quality of his poetry which, 90 years on, brings us back to a time when, in spite of war and the 'terrible beauty' of the Easter Rising, the Irish landscape was in pristine condition. For, Ledwidge specialised in drawing themes from the natural surrounds of Slane where he grew up, even when he was being blitzed by German shells.
Sadly, one such shell ended his life on 30th July, 1917.
Now, a new hardback publication by Hubert Dunn, 'The Minstrel Boy Francis Ledwidge And The Literature Of his Time' pulls together his published and previously unpublished works and, locates the poet in a time when Ireland, in common with the rest of Europe, was experiencing its own trauma.
His is an extraordinary profile and, likewise, the main players among his contemporaries - Yeats and, in particular, the three poets among the 1916 leaders who were shot, Pearse, Plunkett and McDonagh (Ledwidge's favourite writer) are given priority.
The 264 pages of this delightfully illustrated book - including full-length reproductions of some of Ledwidge's poems - simply drip with colour. And, at regular intervals, some of the less immediate meaning or context are explained.
But, this poet's work hardly requires explanation, unlike his contemporary, Yeats who we are told, Ledwidge never met, would have liked to have met, but whose works he wasn't all that fussed about.
Ledwidge's credentials to becoming a writer ('one moved by the gods') are of the classic variety. He preferred to spend time by himself in thought beside streams, although he was robust and not afraid of physical labour.
After a hard day's work on road building, he would read extensively the works of the great English poets, among them, Keats, also a man who drew inspiration from nature, was his favourite.
And, he had another Muse, Ellie Vaughey who remained the love of his life, even after her death, despite her having chosen another man. But, long before that, Ellie and the woods around Slane gave him full vent for his writing talent.
Take, as an instance, the poem, 'Evening in May':
'The blackbird blows his yellow flute so strong,
And rolls away the notes in careless glee.
It breaks the rhythm of the thrushes' song,
And puts red shame upon is rivalry.
The yellowhammers on the roof tiles beat
Sweet little dulcimers to broken time,
And here the robin with a heart replete
Has all in one short plagiarised rhyme'.
As in the days of the bards of Celtic time, Francis Ledwidge was fortunate to have a patron who, by happenchance, was to serve in the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers alongside him, Lord Dunsany. He knew a thing or two about poetry and, in modern parlance, was a talent spotter.
His introduction to, 'Songs of the Fields', a collection of the poet's earlier works is revealing: 'I hope', Lord Dunsany wrote, 'that not too many will be attracted to this book on account of the author being a peasant lest he (ie, the poet) come to be praised by the 'how interesting' school. For, know that neither in any class nor in any country, nor in any age shall you predict the footfall of Pegasus (the winged horse in Roman mythology) who touches the earth where he pleaseth and is bridled by whom he will'.
It was a high-calibre tribute to a man who, in a letter to a US professor of English days before his war death, confessed that the best was yet to come. The book, by the way, carries an emblem of the blackbird on its front and atop each page, reflecting his fascination with nature in his earlier poems, interspersed with lament for the three executed Easter Rising poets.
The author reveals that, like countless thousands of fellow Irishmen who joined up to fight in WW1, Ledwidge bore no hatred for England and, at the same time, he had an intense love for Ireland.
We are told: 'The (ir) executions struck him to the heart. 'The Blackbirds' was written in 1916. He was in barracks in England, having survived the Gallipoli campaign, having served in Serbia and having spent a time of recovery in a hospital in Egypt'.
The first verse of, 'The Blackbirds' gives some idea of the depth of his pain:
'I heard the Poor Old Woman say:
'At the break of day the fowler came,
And took my blackirds from their songs
Who loved me well thro' shame and blame'.
Readers will know that Joseph Oliver Plunkett, who was chronically ill with TB before and during the Easter Rising, was executed four hours after his marriage in prison to Grace Gifford. A 1970's ballad, 'Grace' refers to 'I see his blood upon the rose'. This is the title of a Plunkett poem. He was a deeply religious man.
Ledwidge had known Thomas McDonagh, another 1916 martyr and poet. A dedication to him, 'Thomas McDonagh', begins:
'He shall not hear the bittern cry
In the wild sky where he is lain,
Nor voices of the sweeter birds
Above the wailing of the rain'.
Even on the frontline of battle, he was writing poetry and, apart from the odd allusion to the terrible slaughter being enacted there (135,000 lives were lost in one day in an attack on German lines on 30th July, 1917 against the gain of 100 yards), resonances of the Slane landscape and its birds took priority.
He had trained for battle from 24th October, 1914 to 27th April, 1915 when he sailed from Ireland to war. The Germans and the Turks, whom he held in high regard as clean fighters, were lined up against him, but his pen was forever busy.
It was obvious he appreciated other cultures and was taken with the plight of the locals. His experience of a Serbian village, led to a delightful study of the local cobbler, and where better could any modern-day pupil go to for a portrait of a fast-fading craftman.
'A cobbler lives in Sari Guel
Who has a wise mind, people say.
He sits in his door on a three-legged stool,
Hammering leather all the day'.
Sadly, Ledwidge became a victim of the war, being among seven Fusiliers blown to pieces by a German shell as they constructed a road quite close to German lines for the Allies advance. the book ends with the sombre record, 'Francis Ledwidge was buried, No 5 in Row B of the second plot in Artillery Wood cemetery, about three miles north of Ypres in Belgium'.
Thus ended the life an extraordinary poet whose closely-observed appreciation of nature, not the one of tooth and claw, rather the gentler, more romantic one as seen in, say, 'May':
'She (ie May) leans across an orchard gate somewhere, Bending from out the shadows to the light'.
'The Minstrel Boy. Francis Ledledwidge And The Literature Of His Time' is written by Hubert Dunn and published by Booklink.
It is now available in hardback, and has the ISBN number which is required or ordering, 0-9554097-0-5.
