All my creative pursuits.
On a trip to Austria in 2022, we visited the 11th century fortress at Kufstein. At a high point overlooking the river and the town nestled below, the ‘palas’ (residential quarters) and the ‘Bergfried’ (fortified tower) would have kept watch over the Lower Inn Valley in the province of Tyrol/
One of my favorite War Poets, Siegfried Sassoon at first an enthusiastic soldier, soon became disillusioned with the horror and futility of the fighting on the Western Front. His younger brother Hamo died in 1915 at Gallipoli and this loss no doubt profoundly contributed to his change of heart. Here is my portrait of Siegfried Sassoon and his poem: Glory of Women, written in 1917. It is a response to the way women (and the civilian public in general) wish their men to go off to the war and be heroes.
The Glory Of Women by Siegfried Sassoon
You love us when we’re heroes, home on leave,
Or wounded in a mentionable place.
You worship decorations; you believe
That chivalry redeems the war’s disgrace.
You make us shells. You listen with delight,
By tales of dirt and danger fondly thrilled.
You crown our distant ardours while we fight,
And mourn our laurelled memories when we’re killed.
You can’t believe that British troops ‘retire’
When hell’s last horror breaks them, and they run,
Trampling the terrible corpses—blind with blood.
Oh German mother dreaming by the fire,
While you are knitting socks to send your son
His face is trodden deeper in the mud.
In Gort, County Galway, not far from where I live, sits Thoor Ballylee — a Norman tower purchased by WB Yeats to refurbish into a family home. The tower was built in the 15th century by the de Burgo (Burke) family but became part of the Coole Estate belonging to Yeats’ dear friend and patron, Lady Augusta Gregory, from whom he purchased the tower in 1916/17. This is my painting in miniature of Thoor Ballylee. And the photo I used for reference (via Wikipedia)
Meg Sorick, Author/Artist 