Charles Hamilton Sorley (19 May 1895 – 13 October 1915) was a
British poet of
World War I.
Born in
Aberdeen,
Scotland, he was the son of
William Ritchie Sorley. He was educated, like
Siegfried Sassoon, at
Marlborough College (1908–13). At
Marlborough College Sorley's favourite pursuit was
cross-country running in the rain, a theme evident in many of his pre-war poems, including "Rain" and "The Song of the Ungirt Runners". Before taking up a scholarship to study at
University College, Oxford, Sorley spent a little more than six months in
Germany, three months of which were at Schwerin studying the language and local culture. Then he enrolled at the
University of Jena, and studied there up to the outbreak of World War I.[1]
After Britain declared war on Germany, Sorley was detained for an afternoon in
Trier, but released on the same day and told to leave the country.[2] He returned to England and volunteered for military service, joining the
Suffolk Regiment. He arrived at the
Western Front in
France as a lieutenant in May 1915, and quickly rose to the rank of
captain at the age of twenty. Sorley was killed in action near
Hulluch,[1][3] where he was shot in the head by a
sniper at the
Battle of Loos on 13 October 1915.[2]
Robert Graves, a contemporary of Sorley's, described him in his book
Goodbye to All That as "one of the three poets of importance killed during the war". (The other two were
Isaac Rosenberg and
Wilfred Owen.) Sorley may be seen as a forerunner of Sassoon and Owen, and his unsentimental style stands in direct contrast to that of
Rupert Brooke. Sorley's last poem was recovered from his kit after his death, and includes some of his most famous lines:
When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go
Sorley's sole work was published posthumously in January 1916 and immediately became a critical success, with six editions printed that year. Sorley is regarded by some, including the
Poet Laureate John Masefield (1878–1967), as the greatest loss of all the poets killed during the war. On 11 November 1985, Sorley was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in
Westminster Abbey's
Poet's Corner. The inscription on the stone was written by Wilfred Owen. It reads: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."