Poems
In Snow
O English mother, in the ruddy glow
Hugging your baby closer when outside
You see the silent, soft, and cruel snow
Falling again, and think what ills betide
Unshelter’d creatures,—your sad thoughts may go
Where War and Winter now, two spectre-wolves,
Hunt in the freezing vapour that involves
Those Asian peaks of ice and gulfs below.
Does this young Soldier heed the snow that fills
His mouth and open eyes? or mind, in truth,
To-night, his mother’s parting syllables?
Ha! is’t a red coat?—Merely blood. Keep ruth
For others; this is but an Afghan youth
Shot by the stranger on his native hills.
Hugging your baby closer when outside
You see the silent, soft, and cruel snow
Falling again, and think what ills betide
Unshelter’d creatures,—your sad thoughts may go
Where War and Winter now, two spectre-wolves,
Hunt in the freezing vapour that involves
Those Asian peaks of ice and gulfs below.
Does this young Soldier heed the snow that fills
His mouth and open eyes? or mind, in truth,
To-night, his mother’s parting syllables?
Ha! is’t a red coat?—Merely blood. Keep ruth
For others; this is but an Afghan youth
Shot by the stranger on his native hills.
Analysis (ai): The poem aligns with Victorian-era interests in empire and humanitarian suffering, yet subverts expectations by shifting focus from British soldiers to an Afghan youth, a reversal uncommon in mainstream 19th-century war poetry that typically glorified imperial sacrifice.
- Perspective and Irony: Rather than uphold nationalist sentiment, it critiques imperial blindness by revealing the English mother’s concern as misdirected—her empathy fixed on her own while the actual victim is the colonized youth she does not—and cannot—recognize.
- Imagery and Diction: Winter and war are fused through the metaphor of twin wolves, linking natural and human-made forces of destruction. The “ruddy glow” of domestic warmth starkly contrasts the pale, lethal snow, reinforcing divides between safety and peril.
- Structure and Shifts: An octave evokes maternal anxiety within a traditional framework, but the sestet breaks from expectation, using a volta to expose the irony of misplaced compassion and colonial violence.
- Political Subtext: Unlike many of the author’s lyrical or folk-inspired works, this poem directly engages with the British-Afghan conflict, reflecting a critical stance on imperialism uncommon in Allingham’s oeuvre, which often leaned toward pastoral or romantic themes.
- Reception and Place in Canon: Though less known among Allingham’s poems, this piece stands out for its geopolitical critique. It diverges from the sentimentalism typical of Victorian war elegies and prefigures later anti-imperial poetry by challenging who is seen as worthy of mourning.
- Contemporary Relevance: While pre-modern in form, the poem’s questioning of national bias in empathy resonates with modern discussions about media representation of conflict and the dehumanization of non-Western victims in wartime narratives.
William Allingham (19 March 1824 – 18 November 1889) was an Irish poet, diarist and editor. He wrote several volumes of lyric verse, and his poem “The Faeries” was much anthologised. But he is better known for his posthumously published Diary, in which he records his lively encounters with Tennyson, Carlyle and other writers and artists. His wife, Helen Allingham, was a well-known artist, watercolourist and illustrator.
