On Remembrance Sunday, we are reminded of Mary Webb’s compassion and concern for her brothers and Shropshire lads during the Great War.
AUTUMN 1914
The huddled bean-sheaves under the moon, 
Like black tents, will be vanished soon,
So fast the days draw in and are over,
So early the bees are gone from the clover-
Today, tomorrow-
And nights are dark, and as cold as sorrow.
He’s gone, her man, so good with his hands
In the harvest field and the lambing shed.
Straight ran his share in the deep ploughlands-
And now he marches with the dead…
O world, come in from the leasowes grey,
And cold, where swaths of men are lying,
And horror to shuddering horror crying!
Come home
To the wisdom of those that till the loam,
And give man time for his working day.
Juliette Binfield, great niece of Mary Webb shares a poignant very personal recollection of her grandfather George Douglas Meredith:
“A poem written by my Great Aunt Mary Webb about her brother my Granddad in 1916 , who won the Military Cross”
Mary Webb’s intense concern for her brothers at the front is expressed so poignantly in this poem written in 1916
THE LAD OUT THERE
Oh, Powers of Love, if still you lean,
Above a world so black with hate,
Where yet – as it has ever been –
The loving heart is desolate,
Look down upon the lad I love,
(My brave lad, tramping through the mire) –
I cannot light his welcoming fire,
Light Thou the stars for him above!
Now nights are dark and mornings dim,
Let him in his long watching know
That I too count the minutes slow
And light the lamp of love for him.
The sight of death, the sleep forlorn,
The old homesickness vast and dumb –
Amid these things, so bravely borne,
Let my long thoughts about him come.
I see him in the weary file;
So young he is, so dear to me,
With ever-ready sympathy
And wistful eyes and cheerful smile.
However far he travels on,
Thought follows, like the willow wren
That flies the stormy seas again
To lands where her delight is gone.
Whatever he may be or do
While absent far beyond my call,
Bring him, the long day’s march being through,
Safe home to me some evenfall!
Mary Webb
Sunday, November 14, 2021