Edward Thomas was an English/Welsh poet whose poetry writing was largely inspired by his love of the natural world. As a well respected but financially struggling literary critic and writer he turned to writing poetry partly under the influence of his friend and fellow poet, the American, Robert Frost.
For a short while they both lived in the Gloucestershire village of Dymock, near Ledbury and it was here, amongst the fields and hills that the two poets and their friends walked and talked and Thomas turned to poetry. Today there is a Dymock Poet’s Society and Dymock Church has an extensive display of their work and lives and that of four other poets including Rupert Brooke. Thomas and Frost are both well-loved poets, known for ‘Adlestrop’ and ‘The Road not Taken’ respectively.
Thomas, always indecisive, was just starting to gain the confidence to publish his own work when World War One broke out and despite Frost’s efforts to persuade Thomas to come to America with him, Thomas made the fateful decision to sign up and fight. It was here that he wrote In Memoriam (Easter, 1915).
The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will do never again.
In 1917, Thomas fell victim to the war on which he reflects on so poignantly. A carpet of unpicked flowers is an ironic reminder of the vibrancy of youth, which was being cut short in those foreign fields. The symbolism of Easter and the denial of love and consummation are intense.
At the end of the third line Thomas uses the word ‘should.’ It gives the poem a syntactical unease and introduces the final emphatic line. The use of an anastrophe enables Thomas to finish the poem with the bleak finality of ‘never again.’
This short gem of a poem reminds us of the terrible loss which war is responsible for. The pain and suffering and relationships which are ended forever, and many that might have been, shall never be.
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