Walking wounded in the sunlight
People & History
“Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy was one of the new breed of Church of England chaplains that arose during World War I. The new chaplains spent time with the regular soldiers instead of officers and found themselves transformed by the harsh realities of war,” says The Very Rev’d Dr Peter Catt
Still I see them coming, coming,
In their ragged broken line,
Walking wounded in the sunlight,
Clothed in majesty divine.
For the fairest of the lilies,
That God’s summer ever sees,
Ne’er was clothed in royal beauty
Such as decks the least of these.
Tattered, torn, and bloody khaki,
Gleams of white flesh in the sun,
Raiment worthy of their beauty,
And the great things they have done.
Purple robes and snowy linen
Have for earthly kings sufficed,
But these bloody sweaty tatters
Were the robes of Jesus Christ.
GA Studdert Kennedy, ‘Solomon In All His Glory’
Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy was one of the new breed of Church of England chaplains that arose during World War I.
The new chaplains spent time with the regular soldiers instead of officers and found themselves transformed by the harsh realities of war.
Studdert Kennedy captured his experience through the medium of poetry, and so joined the soldier poets who tried to challenge the way World War I was understood and executed.
They were often critical of those, who from a safe distance, supported and drove the war: the politicians, the bishops and the general public.
Their work was and continues to be a strong antidote to the saccharine poetry that often surfaces on Anzac Day and Remembrance Day; days that are intended to increase our resolve to be peace makers, but are often highjacked by agenda that are nationalistic and war-drum beating.
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