Fairies and Fusiliers
Public-domain ebook
Fairies and Fusiliers
Language: en1,059 downloads on Project Gutenberg
Subjects
In: World War I·Poetry·British Literature
Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #10122.
About this book
Robert Graves’s Fairies and Fusiliers is a sprawling anthology that blends war poetry with mythic reverie. The book opens in a trench‑side tavern where soldiers, half‑drunk on wine, invoke the ancient Three‑and‑Twentieth Legion while lamenting the futility of the Great War. From this gritty dialogue the poet launches into a series of lyrical fragments, dedications to a lover named Lucasta, elegies for fallen comrades, and whimsical retellings of biblical and classical tales, all stitched together by the same voice of a soldier‑poet confronting the chaos of 1914‑1918. The opening passages already reveal the work’s structure: a collage of verses, letters, and short prose pieces that shift from battlefield realism to fantastical allegory, each anchored in the war’s geography and its lingering ghosts.
The style is unmistakably modernist, with abrupt shifts, fragmented syntax, and a tone that oscillates between bitter irony and lyrical melancholy. Graves writes in the early twentieth‑century idiom of war poets, yet he layers in classical allusion and fairy‑tale imagery, creating a hybrid that will appeal to readers who enjoy the raw immediacy of trench poetry as well as those drawn to experimental verse that fuses history, myth, and personal reflection.
Who appears in Fairies and Fusiliers
- StraboYoung British soldier in mud‑splattered greatcoat, gaunt face, dark hair, holding a wine cup
- GracchusMiddle‑aged trench veteran, scarred cheek, brass helmet, weary eyes, clutching a battered mug
The opening · free to read
An Old Twenty-third Man
"Is that the Three-and-Twentieth, Strabo mine, Marching below, and we still gulping wine?" From the sad magic of his fragrant cup The red-faced old centurion started up, Cursed, battered on the table. "No," he said, "Not that! The Three-and-Twentieth Legion's dead, Dead in the first year of this damned campaign-- The Legion's dead, dead, and won't rise again. Pity? Rome pities her brave lads that die, But we need pity also, you and I, Whom Gallic spear and Belgian arrow miss, Who live to see the Legion come to this, Unsoldierlike, slovenly, bent on loot, Grumblers, diseased, unskilled to thrust or shoot. O, brown cheek, muscled shoulder, sturdy thigh! Where are they now? God! watch it struggle by, The sullen pack of ragged ugly swine. Is that the Legion, Gracchus? Quick, the wine!" "Strabo," said Gracchus, "you are strange tonight. The Legion is the Legion; it's all right. If these new men are slovenly, in your thinking, God damn it! you'll not better them by drinking. They all try, Strabo; trust their hearts and hands. The Legion is the Legion while Rome stands, And these same men before the autumn's fall Shall bang old Vercingetorix out of Gaul."
TO LUCASTA ON GOING TO THE WAR-- FOR THE FOURTH TIME
It doesn't matter what's the cause, What wrong they say we're righting, A curse for treaties, bonds and laws, When we're to do the fighting! And since we lads are proud and true, What else remains to do? Lucasta, when to France your man Returns his fourth time, hating war, Yet laughs as calmly as he can And flings an oath, but says no more, That is not courage, that's not fear-- Lucasta he's a Fusilier, And his pride sends him here.
Let statesmen bluster, bark and bray, And so decide who started This bloody war, and who's to pay, But he must be stout-hearted, Must sit and stake with quiet breath, Playing at cards with Death. Don't plume yourself he fights for you; It is no courage, love, or hate, But let us do the things we do; It's pride that makes the heart be great; It is not anger, no, nor fear-- Lucasta he's a Fusilier, And his pride keeps him here.
Two Fusiliers
And have we done with War at last? Well, we've been lucky devils both, And there's no need of pledge or oath To bind our lovely friendship fast, By firmer stuff Close bound enough.
By wire and wood and stake we're bound, By Fricourt and by Festubert, By whipping rain, by the sun's glare, By all the misery and loud sound, By a Spring day, By Picard clay.
Show me the two so closely bound As we, by the red bond of blood, By friendship, blossoming from mud, By Death: we faced him, and we found Beauty in Death, In dead men breath.
Here by a snowbound river In scrapen holes we shiver, And like old bitterns we Boom to you plaintively: Robert how can I rhyme Verses for your desire-- Sleek fauns and cherry-time, Vague music and green trees, Hot sun and gentle breeze, England in June attire, And life born young again, For your gay goatish brute Drunk with warm melody Singing on beds of thyme With red and rolling eye, All the Devonian plain, Lips dark with juicy stain, Ears hung with bobbing fruit? Why should I keep him time? Why in this cold and rime, Where even to dream is pain? No, Robert, there's no reason: Cherries are out of season, Ice grips at branch and root, And singing birds are mute.
Dead Cow Farm
An ancient saga tells us how In the beginning the First Cow (For nothing living yet had birth But Elemental Cow on earth) Began to lick cold stones and mud: Under her warm tongue flesh and blood Blossomed, a miracle to believe: And so was Adam born, and Eve. Here now is chaos once again, Primeval mud, cold stones and rain. Here flesh decays and blood drips red, And the Cow's dead, the old Cow's dead.
Yet once an earlier David took Smooth pebbles from the brook: Out between the lines he went To that one-sided tournament, A shepherd boy who stood out fine And young to fight a Philistine Clad all in brazen mail. He swears That he's killed lions, he's killed bears, And those that scorn the God of Zion Shall perish so like bear or lion. But ... the historian of that fight Had not the heart to tell it right.
Striding within javelin range, Goliath marvels at this strange Goodly-faced boy so proud of strength. David's clear eye measures the length; With hand thrust back, he cramps one knee, Poises a moment thoughtfully, And hurls with a long vengeful swing. The pebble, humming from the sling Like a wild bee, flies a sure line For the forehead of the Philistine; Then ... but there comes a brazen clink, And quicker than a man can think Goliath's shield parries each cast. Clang! clang! and clang! was David's last. Scorn blazes in the Giant's eye, Towering unhurt six cubits high. Says foolish David, "Damn your shield! And damn my sling! but I'll not yield." He takes his staff of Mamre oak, A knotted shepherd-staff that's broke The skull of many a wolf and fox Come filching lambs from Jesse's flocks. Loud laughs Goliath, and that laugh Can scatter chariots like blown chaff To rout; but David, calm and brave, Holds his ground, for God will save. Steel crosses wood, a flash, and oh! Shame for beauty's overthrow! (God's eyes are dim, His ears are shut.) One cruel backhand sabre-cut "I'm hit! I'm killed!" young David cries, Throws blindly forward, chokes ... and dies. And look, spike-helmeted, grey, grim, Goliath straddles over him.
Babylon
The child alone a poet is: Spring and Fairyland are his. Truth and Reason show but dim, And all's poetry with him. Rhyme and music flow in plenty For the lad of one-and-twenty, But Spring for him is no more now Than daisies to a munching cow; Just a cheery pleasant season, Daisy buds to live at ease on. He's forgotten how he smiled And shrieked at snowdrops when a child, Or wept one evening secretly For April's glorious misery. Wisdom made him old and wary Banishing the Lords of Faery. Wisdom made a breach and battered Babylon to bits: she scattered To the hedges and ditches All our nursery gnomes and witches. Lob and Puck, poor frantic elves, Drag their treasures from the shelves. Jack the Giant-killer's gone, Mother Goose and Oberon, Bluebeard and King Solomon. Robin, and Red Riding Hood Take together to the wood, And Sir Galahad lies hid In a cave with Captain Kidd. None of all the magic hosts, None remain but a few ghosts Of timorous heart, to linger on Weeping for lost Babylon.
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