Two Fishers, and Other Poems

In Short

This collection acts as a melancholic, lyrical response to the First World War. It navigates the internal wreckage of a man who once traveled freely through pre-war Europe, finding joy in nature and friendship, only to watch those same landscapes and companions be consumed by industrial slaughter. With a blend of pastoral longing and biting, jagged realism, the work documents the struggle to preserve one’s humanity amidst the "mad, merry" destruction of the early twentieth century. It remains a stark, haunting testament to the psychic cost of conflict.

The Story

The narrative arc begins in a world of shared discovery and transient pleasures. The speaker recalls fishing trips to the Rhineland and the Eifel, painting a picture of a youthful, cosmopolitan Europe where students danced to banjos and shared wine with locals, oblivious to the coming collapse. These early, sun-drenched memories are anchored by the figure of the speaker’s friend, Charley, a comrade-in-arms to whom the speaker repeatedly returns. As the war intensifies, the tone shifts from wistful recollection to a frantic, visceral engagement with the present. The speaker describes the sound of air raids over London, where the sky is illuminated by searchlights and the thunder of guns mimics the "ruining harmony" of Wagnerian opera.

As the war progresses, the speaker’s perspective becomes increasingly fractured. He grapples with the irony of having once loved the very places he now supports destroying. He experiences a deep, spiritual alienation from his own country, which he feels has been corrupted by lechery and violence, leading him to seek refuge in the "Western fells" of England. Here, he finds a sort of secular redemption in the natural world, treating the mountains and streams as sites of healing for his "stricken soul." However, the ghosts of the war are inescapable. He reflects on his former comrades—men who fought for Germany, Austria, or England—now reduced to "dust and scattered ashes."

The final movement of the book moves beyond the immediate grief of the trenches toward a prophetic, if strained, vision of reconciliation. The speaker envisions a "new beginning" where, once the "cruel War" is finished, the earth will sing like a lover and the dead will rise as seraphim to purge the world of its past sins. Yet, this optimism is shadowed by a persistent, elegiac sadness. In the closing pieces, the poet imagines his own end, depicting a world where even the birds have forgotten how to sing because they are overwhelmed by the silence of the fallen. The collection finishes not with a flourish of triumph, but with a quiet, humble turn toward a "gracious Lord," suggesting that when all earthly structures—nationalism, friendship, and even sanity—fail, only a fragile, personal faith remains as a shelter against the encroaching darkness.

How It Unfolds

The pastoral innocence The collection opens with vivid recollections of the Rhineland, where the speaker and his companion, Charley, fish for trout and share wine with locals. These poems establish a pre-war atmosphere of camaraderie and intellectual freedom, setting up the devastating contrast for the carnage that follows.

The shift to conflict The poems transition into the immediate, jarring reality of the war, moving from the quiet of the stream to the terror of air raids over London. The speaker captures the noise and the disorientation of the home front, where the familiar landscape is suddenly haunted by the threat of death.

The interior crisis The focus moves inward as the speaker examines his own frayed spirit and his complex relationship with his home country. He describes his rejection of the "riot of gladness" that defined his youth and his search for an alternative, spiritual landscape within the moors and mountains of the West.

The call for renewal The penultimate section reaches toward a visionary, apocalyptic resolution. The speaker attempts to reconcile the dead of all nations, imagining a future where the earth recovers its bloom and the bitterness of the conflict is washed away by a divine, merciful tide.

The final silence The work concludes with a series of somber reflections on the nature of loss. The poems here focus on the permanent quiet that settles over the world when the music-makers are silenced, leaving behind only the cold, unheeding beauty of the natural world.

The People

The speaker is a "tutor-man" and poet, a restless soul who finds his identity through literature, nature, and deep, often tragic friendships. He is driven by a profound need for spiritual healing, constantly seeking to reconcile his love for European culture with the destruction that culture has wrought upon itself. Charley is the primary addressee, a comrade who represents the speaker’s lost youth and his connection to the war; he is the "new man" the speaker hopes to find again in the peace of the English countryside.

A variety of secondary figures illustrate the speaker's world: a "crusty oberkelner" in Germany who represents the lost, localized life of the pre-war era; a "withered" witch in Greifswald who teaches the speaker about the endurance of pain; and a group of "fierce" Australian soldiers who represent the raw, terrifying vitality of the war itself. Finally, the figure of Simon Peter, the fisherman-saint, serves as a recurring, protective archetype, offering a bridge between the speaker’s humble, earthly hobby and his need for divine forgiveness. None of these characters are static; they are all shaped by the "War’s wild tide," moving from a state of vibrant, often reckless life toward a final, sobering confrontation with their own mortality.

In Its Own Voice

"When the War is over, Charley, / We'll go fishing once again. / You'll be a new man, Charley, / When you walk with fishermen."

In these opening lines, the speaker expresses his desperate hope that a return to nature will heal his war-torn companion.

"They are all dead now, Charley; / They were merry fellows then. / They are dust and scattered ashes / Washed by the rain."

Contrasting his earlier, idyllic memories, the speaker here confronts the stark reality of the lost generation.

"The lark said, 'God is angry in bright Heaven. / I saw Him once,--a great white fluttering bird / ... / He flaps His wings, and tries, and wildly tries; / But He can sing no longer.'"

The speaker employs this imagery of a songless, suffering deity to convey the profound spiritual emptiness left by the war.

What It's Really About

At its core, this book explores the death of a shared European civilization and the subsequent quest for a private, spiritual refuge. It asks whether beauty and nature can survive the industrialization of death. The speaker argues that the war was not merely a political failure, but a spiritual one—a "riot of gladness" turned into "sad Corruption." The central tension lies in the speaker's struggle to reconcile the "merry fellow" he once was with the man who must now live in a world where the "green leaves wither, and the world grows chill." It is a meditation on the limits of human resilience when the external world has been violently stripped of its meaning.

Why Read It Today

Readers who appreciate the intersection of nature writing and war poetry will find this a deeply affecting, if challenging, experience. The writing is marked by a specific, urgent melancholy; the poet is not interested in the grand, patriotic rhetoric of the time, but rather in the small, intimate fractures of the soul. You will feel the weight of a world turning from light to shadow.

However, be prepared for the book's period attitudes and its intense, sometimes erratic, emotional shifts. The speaker’s references to "sinning countries" and his occasional use of archaic, occasionally jarring, poetic conventions reflect a specific, early twentieth-century preoccupation with moral and aesthetic decay. The length is manageable, but the density of the imagery—ranging from the banality of a fishing rod to the vast, frightening emptiness of a silent heaven—demands a patient, attentive reader. It is not a book that provides easy comfort; rather, it offers the bracing, cold air of an honest, broken mind attempting to find its footing after the end of a world. What stays with you is the speaker’s refusal to fully abandon hope, even when he acknowledges that the "sad-eyed Margot" is waiting at home for a soldier who will never return.