IRISH POET KILLED

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 22, 20 October 1917, Page 10

IRISH POET KILLED

MGHTING FOR THE "LITTLE FIELDS. Lance-Corporal Francis Ledwidge, who was killed in action on July 31, was the peasant poet of Heath, "the poet of the W Kurds" lie was called by Loid.Du.nitv who, iith -Mr. Herbert Jenkins, the" publisher, introduced him to the reading world. ■ ■ Second youngest of the nine children of an Irish labourer, he was born in poverty. At throe he went to school, at five he was writing verses, and at 14 he left school to cam money for the family purse. He started in ;i grocer's shop at Dublin. Later lie earned a shilling a day-at'thinning turnips. Then back to Dublin, ho was in a shop again. He loft this to become a. road scavenger a» 12s. a week. .He learned shorthand and wrote verses after the day's work and earned local fame. Afterwards- he toiled in a copper mine, but later fortuno smiled on him, and he became an overKi'pr of roads, but u fad for hypnotism killed his local fame. Thru came the v;ar. and after he.hart joined the Army he wrote, "I have taken im arms for th'e fields along the Boyne, for the birds of the blue sky over them. I iovo the Kinjr and would fight for him willingly, but thousands are already doing that and nobody 'but myself has ioined (he Army to champion those little fields."