'One with Cumberland for ever, We shall go not forth again'

  Within our collections we have many stories. Stories of soldiers passed down through time, via our archives, artefacts or oral histories. One such story is of Nowell Oxland, son of the vicar of Alston in Cumberland. Born in 1891, he attended Durham school and went on to read History at Oxford. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 6th Battalion, The Border Regiment in August 1914 and sailed for Gallipoli on The Empress of Britain on 1 July 1915. 

Oxland landed at Suvla with his Battalion on 6th August, and took part in an attack early on the 9th August. Enemy machine gun fire was heavy which took its toll on the Battalion. Taking cover, survivors dug in for protection until evening time. They were then ordered to withdraw and were eventually taken out of the line after a roll call displayed the terrible tragedy that had been suffered by the Battalion. 12 officers and 26 men were killed, including Oxland. He is buried in the Green Hill Cemetery at Suvla Bay

On the sea voyage from Liverpool to Gallipoli, Nowell Oxland composed a poem entitled Farewell. First published anonymously in The Times shortly after his death, his poem was retitled Outward Bound by the editor, worried about the tone of the poem in an issue of the newspaper that carried 734 death notices of officers fallen at Gallipoli. 

At his Father’s former parish church, St Augustine’s in Alston there is an elaborately carved memorial screen flanked by two painted panels portraying images of two saints. These images of St Michael and St George bear the same face, the face of Nowell Oxland. After his son's death, the Rev Oxland suffered a breakdown and was unable to complete his duties. In 1917, Nowell's parents retired to Southsea but in 1918, his father passed away. On the 105th anniversary of Nowell Oxland's death, it seems fitting to reproduce his poem as part of today's blog post.

Outward Bound - Nowell Oxland, 1915

There’s a waterfall I’m leaving
Running down the rocks in foam,
There’s a pool for which I’m grieving
Near the water-ouzel’s home,
And it’s there that I’d be lying
With the heather close at hand,
And the Curlew’s faintly crying
‘Mid the wastes of Cumberland.

While the midnight watch is winging
Thoughts of other days arise.
I can hear the river singing
Like the Saints in Paradise;
I can see the water winking
Like the merry eyes of Pan,
And the slow half-pounders sinking
By the bridges’ granite span.

Ah! To win them back and clamber
Braced anew with winds I love,
From the rivers’ stainless amber
To the morning mist above,
See through clouds-rifts rent asunder
Like a painted scroll unfurled,
Ridge and hollow rolling under
To the fringes of the world.

Now the weary guard are sleeping,
Now the great propellers churn,
Now the harbour lights are creeping
Into emptiness astern,
While the sentry wakes and watches
Plunging triangles of light
Where the water leaps and catches
At our escort in the night.

Great their happiness who seeing
Still with unbenighted eyes
Kin of theirs who gave them being,
Sun and earth that made them wise,
Die and feel their embers quicken
Year by year in summer time,
When the cotton grasses thicken
On the hills they used to climb.

Shall we also be as they be,
Mingled with our mother clay,
Or return no more it may be?
Who has knowledge, who shall say?
Yet we hope that from the bosom
Of our shaggy father Pan,
When the earth breaks into blossom
Richer from the dust of man,

Though the high Gods smith and slay us,
Though we come not whence we go,
As the host of Menelaus
Came there many years ago;
Yet the self-same wind shall bear us
From the same departing place
Out across the Gulf of Saros
And the peaks of Samothrace;

We shall pass in summer weather,
We shall come at eventide,
When the fells stand up together
And all quiet things abide;
Mixed with cloud and wind and river,
Sun-distilled in dew and rain,
One with Cumberland for ever
We shall go not forth again