A poilu sleeps beneath a firmament of his dreams, including the moon, Venus, the north star, a comet, clouds of pipe smoke, the Milky Way poured from a bottle of wine, shooting stars, and the Great Bear and Little Bear (the Big and Little Dippers) personified by Kaiser Wilhelm and his son, the Crown Prince.

Le Ciel Vu du Front



La Lune, Venus, L'Étoile Polaire, La Comete, La Voie Lactée, Les Étoiles Filantes, Les Nuages, La Grande Ourse, La Petite Ourse



The Moon, Venus, The Polar Star, The Comet, The Milky Way, The Shooting Stars, The Clouds, The Big Dipper, The Little Dipper



JK 2114



Reverse:

Dampierre le Chateau

le 6 Febrier 1918

Ma chere petite femme. Cheris je t'envoi cette petite carte pour te faire rigaler un petit te me dira si sa te fait plaiser embrasse bien petite Solange pour son petit papa

Bonne Sante



My dear little wife. Cheris, I send you this little card to make you laugh a little Tell me if it pleases you Give a kiss to little Solange for her little dad

Good Health

Other views: Larger, Back

Wednesday, February 14, 1917

"My Dear Miss Scott: Now we are nestled in a village under a huge rock; or so it seems, after much regular country. The place reminds me of Birdlip and Crickley, but O tis ruddily cold. The fates have been kind to me, and still leave me as canteen attendant; which means that though freezing one has time to oneself, and are off those confounded cleaning parades, which so gnaw at my life. . . .

There is more literature in this letter, but not yet. The literal translation of the pretty name of this place is The Star, and there are earthworks all round, remains of 1870. Soon we go up again to the trouble; soon Fritz will be hurling high explosive compliments at us with gusto, and we close to the parapets. Well, tres bien, if there is no soft job, the hard one must do, but the first is better."

Quotation Context

Two paragraphs from a letter dated February 14, 1917 to Marion Scott from British soldier (Gloucestershire Regiment), poet, and composer Ivor Gurney. Scott was a composer and President of the Society of Women Musicians from 1915 to 1916, and was working with Gurney on his first book of poems. The letter continues with two Gurney sonnets, 'Home-sickness' and 'Servitude'. The commune of L'Étoile (The Star) is northwest of Amiens, France. The earthworks were from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. The village of Birdlip and Crickley Hill are in Gurney's beloved Gloucestershire. The winter of 1916–17 was bitterly cold.

Source

War Letters, Ivor Gurney, a selection edited by R.K.R. Thornton by Ivor Gurney, pp. 128–129, copyright © J. R. Haines, the Trustee of the Ivor Gurney Estate 1983, publisher: The Hogarth Press, publication date: 1984

Tags

1917-02-14, 1917, February, cold, winter, dreaming poilu