Aubrey Herbert

Aubrey Herbert Poems

Aubrey Herbert Biography

Aubrey Nigel Henry Molyneux Herbert (1880 – 26 September 1923) was a British diplomat, traveller and intelligence officer associated with Albanian independence. Twice he was offered the throne of Albania. From 1911 until his death he was a Conservative Member of Parliament. Aubrey Herbert was the second son of Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon, a wealthy landowner, British cabinet minister and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and his second wife, Elizabeth Howard of Greystoke Castle, Cumberland, sister of Esme Howard, 1st Baron Howard of Penrith. He was a half-brother to George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, the famous Egyptologist who discovered King Tutankhamen's tomb. He was afflicted with eye problems which left him nearly blind from early childhood, losing all his sight towards the end of his life. Herbert was educated at Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford University, where he obtained a first class degree in modern history. He was famous for climbing the roofs of the university buildings, despite his near blindness. He numbered among his friends Adrian Carton De Wiart, Raymond Asquith, John Buchan and Hilaire Belloc. Reginald Farrer remained close throughout his life. His friendship with Middle Eastern traveller and advisor Sir Mark Sykes dates from his entry into parliament in 1911 when, with George Lloyd, they were the three youngest Conservative MPs. They shared an interest in foreign policy and worked closely together in the Arab Bureau (1916). Herbert was also a close friend of T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia); their letters do not feature in the standard Lawrence collections , but are quoted by Margaret Fitzherbert in the biography of her grandfather, The Man Who Was Greenmantle.)

The Best Poem Of Aubrey Herbert

To R. - At Anzac

You left your vineyards, dreaming of the vines in a dream land
And dim Italian cities where high cathedrals stand.
At Anzac in the evening, so many things we planned,
And now you sleep with comrades in the Anafarta sand.

There are men go gay to battle like the cavaliers to dance,
And some with happy dreamings like princes in romance,
And some men march unquestioning to where the answer
lies,
The dawn that comes like darkness they meet with lover's eyes.

You heard the bugles call to arms, and like a storm men's cheers,
But veiled behind that music, you knew the women's tears.
You heard the Vikings singing in a rapture to the sea,
And passing clear beyond that song, the waves of Galilee.

You lived for peace and lived for war, you knew no little strife;
To conquer first, then help your foe, made music of your life.
And for the sake of those you led, you gave your life away,
As youth might fling a coin of gold upon a sunny day.

If Odin mustered Vikings, you would rule his pagan crew.
If Mary came to choose her knights, she'd hand her sword to you.
Men scattered in the wilderness, or crowded in the street,
Would choose you for their leader and glory in defeat.

You'd find a bridge to Lazarus, or any man in pain.
There are not many like you that I shall see again ;
I do not grieve for you who laughed, and went into the shade,
I sorrow for the dream that's lost, Italian plans we made.

Good-bye! It's Armageddon. You will not prune your vine,
Nor taste the salt of channel winds, nor hear the singing Rhine.
You'll sleep with friends and enemies until the trumpet sounds,
And open are the thrones of kings, and all the Trojan mounds.

When women's tears are rainbows then, that shine across the sky,
And swords are raised in last salute, to a comrade enemy,
And what men fought and failed for, or what men strove and won,
Are like forgotten shadows, and clouds that hid the sun.

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