On a cold November morning in 1861, Julia Ward Howe awoke in her room at Willard's Hotel in Washington, D.C., with verses forming in her mind. She had visited Union Army camps the previous day, witnessing thousands of soldiers preparing for battle while singing "John Brown's Body." Now, in the pre-dawn darkness, words came to her with unusual clarity and force. Rising quietly so as not to disturb her sleeping childre…
“We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Devotional Poets, Hymn Writers, Political Poets, Women Poets
Emotional landscape: Irony, Sorrow, Spirituality
John McCrae was born on 30 November 1872 in Guelph, Ontario, then a prosperous and growing town in Canada’s province of Ontario. He died on 28 January 1918 at Wimereux, France, before the war that made his name famous had ended. In the short span between those dates, he became several things at once: physician, medical teacher, pathologist, soldier, officer, friend, and poet. To later generations he is overwhelmingly…
“It is a poem of war, and I hope it will be of some use.”
Neighbourhood:
Death & Mortality, Devotional Poets, Edwardian Poets, Nature Poets, War Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Despair, Longing
