|
Sorley
was born in Aberdeen, the son of a Professor of Moral
Philosophy. He was educated at King's College Choir
School in Cambridge and Marlborough College, from where
he won a scholarship to Oxford University. War was declared
while he was travelling in Germany. He returned to Britain
and joined the Suffolk Regiment.
He
had begun writing poems as a schoolboy and continued
to do so while training with his battalion. In May 1915
he was sent to the Western Front and served in the front
line at Ploegsteert Wood. Six months later, on 13 October,
during the Battle of Loos, he was shot in the head and
died instantly. He was twenty years old. His body was
lost in subsequent fighting but his sonnet 'When
You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead', was found
in his kitbag. When his poems were published after his
death they received significant acclaim from, among
others, Robert Graves and John Masefield, who was later
to become Poet Laureate.
FirstWorldWar.com
- Charles Sorley
|
