Simon Armitage writes moving tribute to the unknown warrior 100 years after WWI

Poet laureate Simon Armitage has written a moving tribute to commemorate the centennial of the Unknown Warrior’s burial.

Today he will read his poem The Bed, the title is a metaphor for the anonymous soldier’s grave, in a televised Armistice Day service at Westminster Abbey.

Armitage, 57, said yesterday: “The poem tells the story of the recovery and repatriation of the body of the Unknown Warrior from the battlefields of World War I to his grave in Westminster Abbey.

“I was very impressed by the ritual detail that had gone into making the coffin and tomb, and I thought of it as a bed, a place to rest in peace.

Poet laureate Simon Armitage, 57, will read his poem The Bed, the title is a metaphor for the anonymous soldier’s grave, in a televised Armistice Day service at Westminster Abbey.

“His anonymity makes him everyone’s child, everyone’s responsibility, and the poem concludes that we owe him his rest, because he paid for our rest with his life.”

He has previously written a sequence of poems inspired by panoramic photographs of battlefields associated with the Battle of the Somme.

The Bed reflects on how the Unknown Warrior was “shattered and sleeping in an earthen grave” with a “crude wooden cross” before being buried “among sleeping poets and sleeping saints” in the abbey.

It tells how “ royal brides on tiptoe in satin slippers will dress and crown you with luminous flowers, ” a reference to the tradition of royal brides sending their bouquets to rest at the Warrior’s tomb, which was started by the Queen Mother at her marriage to the future George VI in 1923.

He left his flowers in memory of his brother Fergus, who was killed in 1915 at the Battle of Loos.

Mr. Armitage ends his poem with the moving words: “All this for a soul without name or rank or age or home, because you are the son we lost, and your rest is ours.”

Princess Elizabeth’s wedding orchid bouquet depicted at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at Westminster Abbey in November 1947

The tomb of the Unknown Warrior symbolizes all those who died for their country in the Great War but whose place of death was not known or whose body remained unidentified.

It was inspired by the Reverend David Railton, who, while serving as a chaplain on the Western Front during World War I, saw a grave marked with a rough cross and a note written in pencil that read: “An Unknown British Soldier.”

Subsequently, he wrote to the then dean of Westminster, Herbert Ryle, with a proposal for a war memorial with no known grave.

His idea won the support of George V, the queen’s grandfather, and then-Prime Minister David Lloyd George. The body was chosen from four unknown British servicemen exhumed from four battle areas and transported back to Britain.

King George V places a wreath on the flag-draped casket of an unidentified British soldier in November 1920, before the soldier’s burial in the tomb of the unknown warrior.

He was brought from northern France and buried on November 11, 1920, two years after the end of the First World War. The tomb, which contains soil from France, is covered by a slab of black marble from a quarry in Belgium.

The Father’s flag, the Union flag delivered to the abbey by Mr. Railton and which covered the Unknown Warrior’s coffin at his funeral, will play a central role in today’s commemoration.

The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall are expected to join the service, which will air on BBC1 starting at 10.30am. M.

It will include an address from Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.

The Queen, who was advised not to attend the service due to the coronavirus pandemic, commemorated the centenary of the Unknown Warrior’s burial last Wednesday.

The 94-year-old monarch requested a private pilgrimage, in which she was seen wearing a mask in public for the first time.