A SOLDIER'S POEM.
[To THE EDITOR OF THB "SPECTATOR.") EIR,—The poem which you published on April 22nd under this title was written in 1897 by Wilfred Brinton, of the Chancery Bar. He died in 1903, and you published a memoir of him from the pen of an old friend on September 12th of that year. In view of the interest aroused by the poem, which the writer's family printed privately and anony- mously and gave to such friends as they thought would appreciate his point of view, it would be kind of you to republish the memoir. The poem itself has gone fez. A few years ago it was republished in a much garbled form, as having been "found on a soldier's body in the Boer War." but it was not then in circulation. It is quite likely that it was found recently on a soldier in Gallipoli, for I have given away hundreds of copies. That which I send you herewith differs here and there from the version which you published last week. It has been published in English in a beautiful little book of bravo and comfortable words called Lift Up Your Hearts (Hodder and Stoughton), though even there the printer has put capitals for " your " and "thy," &e., and has ignored the division into paragraphs. May I add two notes ? The "raw pit" was not consumption, but that which the runner in a hard race finds. The " angels " were the Christmas-card sort. The writer disliked anything mawkish and sentimental in religion, and the " art " type of angel filled him with amused disgust. On the other hand, his belief in the reality of the Communion of Saints was profound.
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