Please can anyone help me to find the words of this beautiful little poem by Winifred Mary Letts. I have tried everywhere I can think of, and our own May Baby's birthday is on 24 May! Please help. Christine.

Thanks, Les - I did try - my library could not trace an anthology of Winifred Letts'poetry, I have all my family, cousins, etc, hunting, e-mailed RTE on which radio station I have heard it twice, but read too fast to copy! I've e-mailed the public libraries in Dublin, no luck. There is a three cd pack with companion book for sale but I think it would be pretty expensive. Thanks anyway - maybe sometime I'll fine it. Best wishes, Christine.

>my library could not trace an anthology of Winifred Letts'poetry

[tinyurl.com]

[tinyurl.com]

To a May Baby
(to Peter John Dobbs)

To come at tulip time how wise!
Perhaps you will not now regret
The shining gardens, jewel set,
Of your first home in Paradise
Nor fret
Because you might not quite forget.

To come at swallow-time how wise!
When every bird has built a nest;
Now you may fold your wings and rest
And watch this new world with surprise;
A guest
For whom the earth has donned her best.

To come when life is gay how wise!
With lambs and every happy thing
That frisks on foot or sports on wing,
With daisies and with butterflies,
But Spring
Had nought so sweet as you to bring.

By the way, Ms Letts was a great friend of my late mother's.

Kind of you to type it up, thanks. Still, it might be wise to shoot off a copy via e-mail, just in case the OP got discouraged and stopped checking this site.

If you click on the user name (in blue) above, it will show her e-mail address.

Thanks Hugh - I did this for 'christine' but don't seem to be able to get an e-mail address for 'lg'? Any idea?

Thanks Bairbre, but I didn't want the poem, just a website where it could be found. Thanks.

Les

Hi, Congrats on the May Baby - Does anyone know anything about Winifred M. Letts? I'm teaching "The Deserter" at GCSE and I can't find anything on her - all I have is she was an Irish playwright, poet and novelist. She married and moved to Kent where she spent the rest of her life...Does anyone have anything more?

There's very little of substance on the web, Bartleby has a small article here:

[www.bartleby.com]

Les

we have discussed about her before :

www.emule.com/2poetry/phorum/read.php?f=7&i;=1449&t;=1449

sorry ... link did not work
now I hope it will :

[www.emule.com]

Author: Bairbre (---.dublin.indigo.ie)
Date: 04-02-04 16:51

I can confirm that Winifred Letts lived from 1882 - 1972. However some of the biographical detail given above is incorrect. She was born 10 Feb 2022 in either Broughton, Manchester or in Knutsford Cheshire, daughter of Rector Ernest Letts and his wife, Isabel Mary Ferrier of Knockmaroon, beside the Phoenix Park in Dublin. Because she spent so many happy family holidays in Knockmaroon and in Wexford, she decided to attend Alexandra College in Dublin (1898 - ?). After her father's death, the family returned to Ireland and she lived with her mother in a house called Dal Riada in Blackrock, Co. Dublin. In 1926, she married a widower William Henry Foster Verschoyle and they lived in Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin, and visited their farm on the Barrow River in Co. Kildare at weekends. Two of Mr Verschoyle's sons, William Arthur and Francis Stuart, had been killed fighting in the First World War. When Mr Verschoyle died in 1943, she returned to live with her sisters in Kent for some time. In 1950, she returned to the beautiful Beech Cottage in Killiney Co. Dublin where she lived until the very late 1960s and could no longer manage on her own. She then moved to the Tivoli Nursing Home in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin where she died 7th June 1972. She is buried in Rathcoole, Co. Dublin.

Mrs Verschoyle was a great friend of my late mother's.

The Harbour in question is Courtown Harbour, Co. Wexford.

i am in the same situation im a student have you found any information on her or the poem 'the deserter'?

What more information do you need about W. M. Letts (apart from my posting which is directly above yours)?

Heres a copy of the poem, whoever needs it:

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The Deserter

There was a man, - don't mind his name,
Whom fear has dogged by night and day.
He could not face the German guns
And so he turned and ran away.
But who can judge him, you or I?
God makes a man of flesh and blood
Who yearns to live and not to die.
And this man when he feared to die.
Was scared as any frightened child,
His knees were shaking under him,
His breath came fast, his eyes were wild.
I've seen a hare with eyes as wild,
With throbbing heart and sobbing breath.
But oh! it shames one's soul to see
A man in abject fear of death.
But fear had gripped him, so had death;
His number had gone up that day,
They might not heed his frightened eyes,
They shot him when the dawn was grey
Blindfolded, when the dawn was grey,
He stood there in a place apart,
The shots rang out and down he fell,
An English bullet in his heart.
An English bullet in his heart!
But here's the irony of life,-
His mother thinks he fought and fell
A hero, foremost in the strife.
So she goes proudly; to the strife
Her best, her hero son she gave.
O well for her she does not know
He lies in a deserter's grave.

Winifred Mary Letts (1887-1972)

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Main points:

- The poet began the sentence of a scene of an action, a character being introduced like a story. 'There was a man - don't mind his name'.
- The poet's language uses repitition in the lines of 24/25, and was to emphasis the reality of the war on soldiers.
- There poet uses comparisions between the soldier with the children/hare.
- The poet doesn't name the soldier,because he wants whoever reads it can relate it to those people who went to war.
- There were retorical questions asked apon readers.
- The main messages in the poem was that he was asking readers is running away and being shot was right or wrong, and who is to blame.
- The mother had ab experssion of believing her son is a hero and is proud of him.

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Hope this helps... =P