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Teresa Hooley - A War Film
Identifier
013329
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background

Teresa Hooley was born at Risley Lodge, Derbyshire, in 1888 and was educated by a private governess and then at Howard College, Bedford. She wrote poetry throughout her life. She died in I973.
A description of the experience
A War Film.
I Saw,
With a catch of the breath and the heart’s uplifting,
Sorrow and Pride,
The ‘week’s great draw’ -
The Mons Retreat;
The ‘Old Contemptibles’ who fought, and died,
The horror and the anguish and the glory.
As in a dream,
Still hearing machine-guns rattle and shells scream,
I came out into the street.
When day was done,
My little son
Wondered at bath-time why I kissed him so,
Naked upon my knee.
How could he know -
The sudden terror that assaulted me?...
The body I had borne
Nine moons beneath my heart, a part of me...
If, someday,
It should be taken away
To War. Tortured. Torn.
Slain.
Rotting in No Man’s Land, out in the rain -
My little son...
Yet all those men had mothers, every one.
How should he know ~
Why I kissed and kissed and kissed him,
crooning his name?
He thought that I was daft.
He thought it Was a game,
And laughed, and laughed.