Somebody’s Darling …

In keeping with what seems to have become a tradition for my Anzac Day posts, I thought for this year I would use this poem which I found in an album belonging to my grandmother’s sister, my great-aunt Belle Dewar.  

We stumbled across Aunty Belle’s album only a year or so ago, tucked into a bookcase at my brother’s home.  No-one recalls ever seeing it before, and no-one knows how it got there, but it must have been passed on at some time by an older family member.  The album is dated 1884, when Belle would have been about nineteen.  It contains poems and writings which obviously struck a chord with her, as well as sketches and autograph-style entries from family and friends.

This particular poem was entered in the album on 26/09/1885 by “Madge”, who I think was the wife of Belle’s eldest brother Jimmy.  Although it pre-dates the Anzac era, the sentiments expressed are just as relevant today, highlighting the tragedy that is war.  Somebody’s Darling was written during the American Civil War by Marie Ravenal de la Coste, a nurse in Savannah, Georgia whose own fiance had been killed while fighting with the Confederate army. It was first published in 1864.

SOMEBODY’S DARLING

Into a ward of the white washed walls,
Where the dead and dying lay,
Wounded by bayonets, shells and balls,
Somebody’s darling was borne one day.

Somebody’s darling so young and brave
Wearing yet on his pale sweet face,
Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave,
The lingering light of his boyhood’s grace.

Matted and damp are the curls of gold
Kissing the snow of that fair young brow;
Pale are the lips of delicate mold –
Somebody’s darling is dying now.

Back from the beautiful blue-veined brow
Brushed all the wandering waves of gold;
Cross his hands on his bosom now;
Somebody’s darling is still and cold.

Kiss him once for somebody’s sake,
Murmur a prayer soft and low;
One bright curl from it’s fair mates take;
They were somebody’s pride you know.

Somebody’s hand has rested there;
Was it a mother’s soft and white?
And have the lips of a sister fair
Been baptized in the waves of light?

God knows best! He was somebody’s love,
Somebody’s heart enshrined him there.
Somebody wafted his name above,
Night and morn on the wings of prayer.

Somebody wept when he marched away,
Looking so handsome brave and grand;
Somebody’s kiss on his forehead lay;
Somebody clung to his parting hand.

Somebody’s watching and waiting for him,
Yearning to hold him again to her heart;
And there he lies with his blue eyes dim,
And the smiling child-like lips apart.

Tenderly bury the fair young dead,
Pausing to drop on his grave a tear;
Carve on the wooden slab at his head,
“Somebody’s darling slumbers here.”

Marie Ravenal de la Coste,

Savannah, Georgia 1864