By 1908 Marian and her family were living in Woodstock Road, Oxford, UK. In around 1913 – 1914, Marian first met Arthur Tylston Greg, to whom she became engaged to be married and to whom her poetry collection is dedicated.
Marian's brother, George Dundas Allen, went to study law at New College, Oxford. One of his fellow students was called Arthur Tylston Greg and it seems likely that he and Marian first met when Arthur Greg visited his friend.
When the First World War started in August 1914, Arthur and Dundas (as Marian Allen's brother was known) abandoned their studies and joined the army.
Arthur, who was commissioned into the 3rd Battalion of the Cheshire Regiment, was involved in the battles that took place around the Hill 60 in Belgium and in May 1915, he was badly wounded. By 1916, Dundas had joined the Royal Flying Corps and was awarded the Military Cross. Arthur also joined the Royal Flying Corps where, as Captain Greg, he trained to fly D.H.4 bombers.
On Wednesday, 4th April 1917, Marian and Arthur said farewell for the last time when Arthur Greg left Charing Cross Railway Station for Boulogne, to join 55th Squadron. He was shot down over St Quentin on 23rd April, St George's Day, 1917. Arthur is buried at Jussy Cemetery. "Love is stronger than death" is the inscription on his gravestone. Marian Allen heard the news and some of her finest poems, many of them sonnets, were written almost immediately. She completed "To A. T. G." on 2nd May, and "I like to think of you..." on 10th May.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Marian Allen was a successful writer and illustrator of books for children. She also designed book covers.
Marian died in Oxford on 12th September 1953.
Marian Allen’s WW1 poetry collection “The Wind on the Downs” was published by Hymphreys, London in 1918. She also had a poem included in the WW1 anthology “War Verse”, edited by Frank Foxcroft (Crowell, New York, 1918).
“The Raiders”
In shadowy formation up they rise,
Dusky raiders with their bat-like wings.
The night is studded with a thousand eyes
And its dim cloak on desolation flings.
The wind through stay and wire moans and whines,
The engines throb with thrilled expectant breath.
Eighty miles to eastward on the lines
They go and carry with them stings of death.
The spirit of Adventure calls ahead,
They leave the earth behind them battle-bound
And rise untrammelled from the war-stained ground,
Grey moving shadows o’er the lonely dead,
Flying unflinching as an arrow flies
Down the uncharted roadway of the skies.
Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 40 and p. 10
Find my Past
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/161891144
https://allpoetry.com/Marian-Allen
