Edward Thomas was south London’s war poet. Born in Lambeth, he went to Battersea Grammar School, and became a newspaper literary critic after university. He only began writing his own poetry in 1914, and he signed up for the army in 1915, when aged 37. He was killed in action on Easter day, 1917.

He wrote the following brief poem in the spring of 1915.

In Memoriam (Eastertide 1915)

The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will do never again.