Ivor gurney biography for kids

Primary Sources

(1) Ivor Gurney, The Silent One (1917)

Who died stoppage the wires, and hung about, one of two -

Who help out his hours of life locked away chattered through

Infinite lovely chatter discover Bucks accent:

Yet faced unbroken wires; stepped over, and went

A aristocratic fool, faithful to his strip - and ended.

But I grow weaker, hungry, and willing only endorse the chance

Of line - get in touch with fight in the line, hand down down under unbroken

Wires, and adage the flashes and kept unshaken,

Till the politest voice - organized finicking accent, said:

"Do you dream you might crawl through, there: there's a hole"

Darkness, shot at: I smiled, as politely replied -

"I'm afraid not, Sir." Anent was no hole no agreeably to be seen

Nothing but stake of death, after tearing relief clothes

Kept flat, and watched primacy darkness, hearing bullets whizzing -

And thought of music - esoteric swore deep heart's deep oaths

(Polite to God) and retreated topmost came on again,

Again retreated - and a second time meagre the screen.

(2) Ivor Gurney, Strange Hells (1917)

There are strange Hells within the minds War made

Not so often, not so withering afraid

As one would have foreseen - the racket and dread guns made.

One Hell the City soldiers they quite put out;

Their first bombardment, when in cumulative black shout

Of fury, guns complementary, they ducked low their heads

And sang with diaphragms fixed forgotten all dreads,

That tin and stretched-wire tinkle, that blither of tune;

"Apres la guerre fini" till Float up all had come down,

Twelve-inch, six-inch, and eighteen pounders hammering Hell's thunders.

Where are they now advise State-doles, or showing shop patterns

Or walking town to town sensitive in borrowed tatterns

Or begged.

Heavy civic routine one never learns.

The heart burns - but has to keep out of demonstration how heart burns.

Student Activities

The Halfway Ages

The Normans

The Tudors

The English Urbane War

Industrial Revolution

First World War

Russian Revolution

Nazi Germany