WW1 poets: Jessie Pope

I found this today on a friend's blog.  She is reproducing WW1 poems throughout 2014, some are very touching, some make you cry - but this one?  Well, it just hit the spot for me.

 

Socks

Shining pins that dart and click

In the fireside’s sheltered peace

Check the thoughts the cluster thick  -

20 plain and then decrease.

He was brave – well, so was I –

Keen and merry, but his lip

Quivered when he said good-bye –

Purl the seam-stitch, purl and slip.

Never used to living rough,

Lots of things he’d got to learn;

Wonder if he’s warm enough –

Knit 2, catch 2, knit, turn. 

Hark! The paper-boys again!

Wish that shout could be suppressed;

Keeps one always on the strain –

Knit off 9, and slip the rest.

Wonder if he’s fighting now,

What he’s done an’ where he’s been;

He’ll come out on top somehow –

Slip 1, knit 2, purl 14.

***

Jessie Pope was a poet and journalist. She is best known for her patriotic motivational poetry

which was published in the Daily Mail newspaper during WW1.

Pope was widely published during the war, apart from newspaper publication producing three volumes: Jessie Pope's War Poems (1915), More War Poems (1915) and Simple Rhymes for Stirring Times (1916)