Leslie coulson biography
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Leslie Coulson was an English First World War poet and journalist who tragically lost his life on the battlefields of the Western Front.
He was born on the 19th July 1889 in the Kilburn district of London, the son of a Sunday Chronicle journalist. After a boarding school education in Norfolk he followed his father into newspapers, obtaining a post as a junior reporter on the Evening News. But then, in the August of 1914, came the war and Coulson went to the Army recruiting office immediately, keen to “do his bit”. He enlisted as a private soldier in the infantry regiment of the Royal Fusiliers. After a few short months, and poignantly on Christmas Eve, he boarded a troop ship bound for Malta. He did not know, then, that he would never see the shores of England again.
After Malta he also saw service in Egypt, and then Gallipoli. After the debacle of that peninsular campaign, where allied forces were forced to evacuate the area after heavy losses, came the call to the We
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Who Made the Law?
Who made the Law that men should die in meadows?
Who spake the word that blood should splash in lanes?
Who gave it forth that gardens should be bone-yards?
Who spread the hills with flesh, and blood, and brains?
Who made the Law?
Who made the Law that Death should stalk the village?
Who spake the word to kill among the sheaves,
Who gave it forth that death should lurk in hedgerows,
Who flung the dead among the fallen leaves?
Who made the Law?
Those who return shall find that peace endures,
Find old things old, and know the things they knew,
Walk in the garden, slumber by the fireside,
Share the peace of dawn, and dream amid the dew –
Those who return.
Those who return shall till the ancient pastures,
Clean-hearted men shall guide the plough-horse reins,
Some shall gr
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Leslie Coulson
English reporter and First World War poet
Leslie Coulson (19 July 1889 – 8 October 1916) was an English journalist and a poet of the First World War.[1]
Coulson was born in Kilburn, London, his father being a columnist for The Sunday Chronicle.[2] Leslie and his brother attended boarding school in Norfolk, and Leslie then worked as a reporter on the Evening News. He joined the Royal Fusiliers in 1914, declining a commission as an officer and instead enlisting as a private.[3] He carried out his training in Malta, then served in Egypt and Gallipoli before arriving at the Western Front in 1916.[4]
Coulson was fatally wounded at the Battle of Le Transloy, and died the next day.[5] He is buried at the Commonwealth War Graves kommission Grove Town Cemetery nära the by of Méaulte. His collected poems were published posthumously in 1917, edited bygd his father, and sold 10,000 copies in the first year. The