Trench Ballads, and Other Verses — Reading Companion

Colloquial Voice and Soldier Speech

Garrett consistently adopts the idiom of the American enlisted man. In “Embarkation Home,” he warns the homebound soldier: “If you are full o’ the joy o’ life / And ‘pep’ and all that stuff… / Don’t turn and yell, ‘Who won the War?— / The M P’s’—Can that guff.” The contractions, slang (“guff,” “pep”), and direct address create a spoken, almost conversational tone. The poem’s advice—to walk “sedately up the gangplank… / Eyes front and lips tight set”—mixes humor with the reality of military discipline. This voice is not uniform across the collection; the pre-war poems adopt a more formal, patriotic register. In “To France—1917,” Garrett writes of “the blazing red of courage— / The white of purpose true,” using regular meter and elevated diction. The contrast suggests that the trench ballads’ colloquialism is a deliberate stylistic choice tied to the front-line experience.

Sensory Details of the Battlefield

The poems repeatedly evoke the soundscape of war. In an untitled ballad, Garrett describes “the thundering pound / Of the great guns night and day” and a voice “whirling, swirling, shrieking down / Where the helpless front lines lean.” The alliteration and onomatopoeia (“whirling, swirling, shrieking”) mimic the trajectory of an incoming shell. Elsewhere, he contrasts this noise with a pastoral quiet: “The air is soft as a morn in June— / The filmy shadows sway; / And only the joyous music / Of the prattle of children at play.” This juxtaposition of violence and peace is a recurring structural device. The preface notes that when “present locality is intimated, it is always France,” so the “children at play” likely belong to a French village near the lines. Garrett’s attention to sensory detail—sound, movement, atmosphere—grounds the poems in a specific, observed environment.

Structure and Thematic Progression

The collection is divided into three parts: “Trench Ballads,” “Pre-war Poems,” and “Other Poems.” The preface explains that the trench ballads follow a loose sequence, “gradually leading from a number of military verses… to the day of being wounded, then on to several poems concerning the military hospital, and finally… the returning home of the soldier.” This arc is evident in the excerpts: early poems focus on trench life and combat, while later ones like “Embarkation Home” and “The Statue of Liberty” deal with departure and homecoming. The pre-war poems, written before America’s entry, adopt a more rhetorical, patriotic tone. “The Pacifist” (partially excerpted) uses direct condemnation: “Cowards and curs and traitors.” The three-part structure thus mirrors a chronological and emotional journey from anticipation, through frontline experience, to return.

Recurring Motifs: Duty, Discipline, and Home

Several poems return to the tension between individual impulse and military order. In “Embarkation Home,” the soldier is told to “repress that natural impulse” to celebrate, because “you’re not human—yet.” The Military Police are described as “a sacred caste / That boss the city street / A hundred miles behind the Lines.” This sardonic view of rear-echelon authority contrasts with the front-line soldier’s perspective. The Statue of Liberty appears as a maternal figure: “Oh lay down your guns my knight-errant sons, / And come back to the bosom of me.” The poem’s colloquial opening (“Sing of the Venus de Milo, / The lady without any arms”) undercuts the statue’s grandeur, yet the closing lines are earnest. Garrett’s treatment of home is both sentimental and practical—a place to return to, but also a source of discipline and identity.

Readers will find that Garrett’s insistence on “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” shapes not only the content but the form of these poems. The ballads are best approached as documentary verse, attentive to the language and sensations of the American infantryman in France. The notes at the end of the volume, which Garrett urges readers to consult, likely provide further context for the incidents and locations mentioned. For those interested in the vernacular poetry of World War I, this collection offers a firsthand account that balances the grimness of combat with moments of dark humor and patriotic sentiment.

I’ve shelved these two for years, side by side in my mind. The trench ballads speak of mud and courage in a soldier’s own plain words. And when I hold Indian Legends and Other Poems — Edition Insights, I find that same quiet voice—not of war, but of earth and old stories. Both feel like whispered remembrances, not grand pronouncements.