Eleanor's brother, the poet Robert Jocelyn Alexander, was killed on 10th October 1918 when he was travelling from ireland to Britain aboard the RMS "Leinster" when the ship was torpedoed and sunk.
Eleanor
never married and lived with her father in Devon when he retired. After the
death of her father in 1924, the King granted Eleanor permission to live in
rooms in Hampton Court Palace in honour of her father’s lifetime of
service. She died there on 3rd
June 1939. Eleanor’s body was returned
to Londonderry for burial. She had lived
there for much of her life and her family were buried there.
Eleanor’s
poems were included in seven WW1 poetry anthologies and were also published in “The
Times”, “The Spectator” and the “Belfast Telegraph”.
The following lines, taken from Eleanor’s “Commemorative Ode”, were
written by Eleanor in late June 1917 to mark the first anniversary of the Battle of the
Somme. She dedicated the poem to the memory of the 36th (Ulster)
Division. The poem was published in “The
Belfast Telegraph”:
‘Heaven for
a moment; heaven, then hell,
Into the
sunshine yellow on the grass
With brows
uplifted, stern-lipped, glad they pass
To shot and
splitting shell.
Now in the
open, now at last
For love of
liberty in England’s name,
To prove the
soul of Derry’s ancient fame,
The mettle
of Belfast
Not
tear-dimmed, downcast, follow higher
Proud eyes,
the well-beloved that toil and strain
In
battle-storm and death and bitter pain
Through
enfilading fire.
On to the
trenches burrowed deep –
What of the
brave, the brave who fight and fall
On to that
last line in the smoke’s grey pall,
To have, to
hold, to keep.’
Sources: http://www.londonderrysentinel.co.uk/news/an-ode-to-londonderry-s-lesser-known-war-poets-1-7207646
Find my Past
and Catherine Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War A Bibliography”
(St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978)
