- Geoffrey Dearmer
Geoffrey Dearmer (
March 21 ,1893 -18 August ,1996 ) was a Britishpoet . He was the son of Anglican liturgist andhymn ologistPercy Dearmer .During
World War I , Dearmer fought atGallipoli and on theWestern Front . Most of his poems dealt with the over all brutality ofwar andviolence , to which he was a direct eyewitness.He died at the age of 103. The "Geoffrey Dearmer Prize for poetry" was founded in his memory in 1997.
One of his most famous poems is:
: The Turkish Trench Dog
: Night held me as I crawled and scrambled near: The Turkish lines. Above, the mocking stars: Silvered the curving parapet, and clear: Cloud-latticed beams o'erflecked the land with bars;: I, crouching, lay between: Tense-listening armies peering through the night,: Twin giants bound by tentacles unseen: Here in dim-shadowed light: I saw him, as a sudden movement turned: His eyes towards me, glowing eyes that burned: A moment ere his snuffling muzzle found: My trail; and then as serpents mesmerise: He chained me with those unrelenting eyes,: That muscle-sliding rhythm, knit and bound: In spare-limbed symmetry, those perfect jaws: And soft-approaching pitter-patter paws. : Nearer and nearer like a wolf he crept --: That moment had my swift revolver leapt --: But terror seized me, terror born of shame: Brought flooding revelation. For he came: As one who offers comradeship deserved,: An open ally of the human race,: And sniffling at my prostrate form unnerved: He licked my face!
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