Rupert
John Cornford, the son of the poet, Frances Cornford, was
born in Cambridge in 1915. He was educated
at Stowe School and Trinity College,
Cambridge, where he studied history.
He also spent time at the London School of Economics.
While at university he began writing poetry.
In 1933
Cornford joined the Communist Party and
in August 1936 he became the first Englishman to go to fight for the
Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. While
in Spain Cornford served with Worker's
Party (POUM) army and fought at Aragon
in August 1936.
John
Cornford was
killed
just outside Madrid, while fighting at a place called El Calvario.on 29th December 1936. His best known work is The Last Mile to Huesca (1936) and Poems from Spain (1936).
Wikipedia: John Cornford
(1)
John Cornford, A Letter From Aragon (1936)
This is a quiet sector of a quiet front.
We buried Ruiz in a new
pine coffin,
But the shroud was too
small and his washed feet stuck out.
The stink of his corpse
came through the clean pine boards
And some of the bearers
wrapped handkerchiefs round their faces.
Death was not dignified.
We hacked a ragged grave
in the unfriendly earth
And fired a ragged volley
over the grave.
You could tell from our
listlessness, no one much missed him.
This is a quiet sector
of a quiet front.
There is no poison gas
and no H.E.3
But when they shelled
the other end of the village
And the streets were choked
with dust
Women came screaming out
of the crumbling houses,
Clutched under one arm
the naked rump of an infant.
I thought: how ugly fear
is.
This is a quiet sector
of a quiet front.
Our nerves are steady;
we all sleep soundly.
In the clean hospital bed
my eyes were so heavy
Sleep easily blotted out
one ugly picture,
A wounded militiaman moaning
on a stretcher,
Now out of danger, but
still crying for water,
Strong against death, but
unprepared for such pain.
This on a quiet front.
But when I shook hands
to leave, an Anarchist worker
Said: "Tell the workers
of England
This was a war not of our
own making,
We did not seek it.
But if ever the Fascists
again rule Barcelona
It will be as a heap of
ruins with us workers beneath it."
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
