What is 'The Wind on the Downs' By Marian Allen about?

Answer 1

This moving poem was written on May tenth and eleventh 1917, less than a fortnight after Marian Allen had heard of the death of Captain Arthur Tylston Greg, the man she was to have married. Much of its emotional power stems from the simplicity and sincerity of its language:Marian was not so much writing a poem as continuing her letters to Arthur. Interestingly it gives a woman's view of the suffering caused by WW1: the poem reminds us of that" tenderness of silent minds" with which those left behind remember the dead in Wilfred Owen's 'Anthem for Doomed Youth'

In some ways the poem's effect is similar to Wordsworth's Ballad 'A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal' in which two contradictory emotions are counterpoised. However while in Wordsworth's poem the first stanza presents a dream world which is destroyed by reality in the second, in each verse of Marian's poem the feelings of dream and reality interact, mirroring her emotional turmoil. Effectively using the Shakespearean Sonnet form of three quartets and a couplet, Marian sets her belief that Arthur is still with her against the harsh reality of what theytell her: Arthur is 'dead'.

In the opening lines Arthur is still very much alive in the fond 'I like to think of you as brown and tall',very much a soldier 'in khaki tunic' and ' Sam Browne belt', although the more colloquial, slightly mocking 'and all' reminds us of the man behind the soldier, a feeling reinforced by the easy intimacy of 'and laughing down at me'. However, counterbalancing this picture of a happy relationship is the sober 'as you used to be' reinforced by the chilling rhyme on 'dead'. This is the world of reality that Marian struggles to resist .'Theytell me'; the anonymous world of 'they' has broken into the 'you and I ' of the lovers' world , a love recalled in the tenderness of 'dear'. What they have said seems to be supported by 'Because I can no longer see your face' but reality is no sooner accepted than it is fervently denied in 'You have not died, it is not true'. Love and faith, expressed in the determined I believe' overpower reason: Arthur is still with her. The struggle between opposing feelings is beautifully presented in line,

'I hear laughing you laughing as you used to do'

where the certainty in the affectionate 'I hear you laughing' dissipates after the caesura in the unbeglamoured 'as you used to do'. However death is rejected in the closing couplet as the Arthur of past and present merge in 'you follow and are watchful where I go', 'watchful' suggesting a tender solicitude. The idea that Arthur is no longer with her is clearly ridiculous,

'How should you leave me having loved me so'.

However, the certainty of this closing line is slightly weakened by the past 'loved'. In essence the line encapsulates the mood of the stanza as a whole ,where a strong feeling coexists with its opposite.

In the following sonnet written on the next day the feeling of harsh reality continues to intrude : the present of 'I like' has become the past of 'we walked'. The walk along the towpath is both to be taken literally as the lovers walk (or sadly 'walked') to New College and as a metaphor for their journey through life together, a journey that war has tragically ended. ' The life' that lay all uncertainly before' is in some ways now all too certain. The lover's hopes' like those of the soldier in 'Futility' 'dreaming of fields unsown' will remain unfulfilled. Past and present, dream and reality merge in 'it seemedimpossible that you should die' . Arthur will never age in her memory think of you the same' a feeling reinforced in the determined promise with which the first quartet ends 'and always shall'. Arthur was her past, is her present and will be her future.

'We', the opening of the second quartet brings the lovers,' you' and 'I'' of the towpath walk together again, before awareness of reality separates them once more in the sad 'I walk alone' .Arthur is no longer with her as ,still an adventurous figure in her imagination , he explores his new world, a world she cannot share. The walk now continues 'alone' though Arthur protects her in death as he did in life.. The golden wings flying overhead, is an image of protection that recalling ,as it does , angels beautifully merges the world of Arthur's new kingdom, Marian's belief in an afterlife and the golden wings of

the Royal Flying Corps. Arthur, the soldier, her protector in life merges with the shadowy ' figure' who protects her still, In these closing lines 'khaki figure' sounds almost ghostly as she begins to accept the reality of Arthur's death a feeling reinforced by 'pass' with its echoes of 'past' and 'pass away'.

'Leaving the meadow' is clearly a metaphor for her leaving behind her past life, the life of the towpath walk. The moving couplet with which the sonnet ends tenderly recalls Arthur's solicitude for her and almost recalls him to her present but there is a world of sadness in that 'almost' : the dream will never again be reality.

Notes

1) 'Wind on the Downs' first appeared in 1918 in a book of poems of the same name .

2)Sam Browne belt -worn diagonally across the tunic by British army officers.

3)The towpath is just near the house in Woodstock Road where Marian was living with her parents when she met Arthur in 1913/14.

4)'I think of you the same and always shall' Marian kept her promise. She died unmarried in 1953 treasuring a scrapbook of Arthur's life and the ticket he bought(no.7935) to take him from Charing Cross to Boulogne and death.

5)'Golden wings'- both the wings of angels and the wings of the Royal Flying Corps in which Arthur was a bomber pilot flying the DH4. It seems likely that Arthur was inspired to leave the infantry and join the RFC by Marian's brother,Dundas ,who won the Military Cross.

6) Arthur was shot down 'shot straight between the eyes' near St.Quentin on

April 23rd,1917.

His grave in Jussy cemetery bears the inscription:' Love is stronger than death'.