Today, a woman’s voice from the First World War. Violet Jacob (1863-1946) was a notable poet and novelist, whose family had lived in Angus since the fifteenth century.
Her only son Harry was killed at the Battle of the Somme at the age of 21. This is the poignant lament she wrote for him, with his initials forming the simple title.
To A.H.J.
Past life, past tears, far past the grave,
The tryst is set for me,
Since for our all, your all you gave
On the slopes of Picardy.
~
On Angus, in the autumn nights,
The ice-green light shall lie,
Beyond the trees the Northern Lights
Slant on the belts of the sky.
~
But miles on miles from Scottish soil
You sleep, past war and scaith,
Your country’s freedman, loosed from toil,
In honour and in faith.
~
For Angus held you in her spell,
Her Grampians, faint and blue,
Her ways, the speech you knew so well,
Were half the world to you.
~
Yet rest, my son: our souls are those
Nor time nor death can part,
And lie you proudly, folded close
In France’s deathless heart.
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