On Active Service: A Lark Above the Trenches 1916 by J.W. Streets

This week we'll be sharing a daily poetry reading from our On Active Service 1914-1918 collection as part of our Armistice commemorations. 

Today, Chris Lynn reads J.W. Streets' A Lark Above the Trenches 1916. This poem, and all the poems we'll be sharing this week are available in a free, downloadable extract from the On Active Service anthology. Find out more.

You can also read along with the poem below.

A Lark Above the Trenches 1916  

Hushed is the shriek of hurtling shells: and hark!
Somewhere within that bit of soft blue sky-
Grand in his loneliness, his ecstasy,
His lyric wild and free – carols a lark. 

I in the trench, he lost in heaven afar,
I dream of Love, its ecstasy he sings;
Doth lure my soul to love till like a star
It flashes into Life: O tireless wings 

That beat love’s message into melody –
A song that touches in this place remote
Gladness supreme in its undying note
And stirs to life the soul of memory –
‘Tis strange that while you’re beating into life
Men here below and plunged in sanguine strife! 

J.W.Streets

This week we're commemorating the centenary of the armistice with poetry readings from our anthology On Active Service 1914-1918. We've made a collection of poems from the anthology available as a free digital download so that you can read along at home. Find out more.