These 30+ sonnets are a heartfelt cry from HDR to the British government that they are neglecting their duty to protect the Armenian people who were being slaughtered in their thousands by the Turks. Very rarely did he so publicly denounce the government for their inaction. In HDR’s eyes the conflict was religious, with the Muslim Turks determined to wipe out the Armenian Christians. The sonnets are amongst the most bitter and angry that HDR wrote and using language that did not appear in any of his other poems.
In the Preface to the book HDR wrote:
Armenia is cast to the dogs. The love of Christ and the love of man have no longer it seems any power of appeal to the heart of civilised Europe. Many of us are ashamed of being Englishmen. We think it is a mockery that the British flag, with the red cross of St. George upon it, should continue to fly above our heads; for England, in conjunction with her fellow Powers, has broken her pledges; and, not content with standing, hands behind her back, to watch a defenceless Christian people torn limb from limb in the shambles of the Sultan, is actually still upholding the butcher at his unholy work. And all this because she is, for politic reasons, afraid of precipitating a crisis which will come, so some think, and come with dishonour, at the last [p. 5]. . . .
This people, 30 millions in old time, had been reduced to 3 millions by constant persecution under Musselman rule. Then came the Berlin Congress in 1878 . . . [p. 6]. Since that time to 1891, by a slow process of most cruel exaction, the lives of the Armenians had been made intolerable [p. 7].
[This] people was to be wiped from the face of the earth at the will of the rottenest government that has ever disgraced the civilised world [p. 8]
So well has the “Shadow of God,” with apparently the full consent of Christian Europe, succeeded in his cruel work of extermination, that a country, 500 miles long by 300 miles broad, has been devastated by brigands and soldiers, whose inhuman deeds can only be described as the deeds of fiends from hell. 50,000 men, some say 100,000, mostly breadwinners, have perished; 47,000 houses and shops have been plundered or burned to the ground; 40,000 Christians have been forced by fear of torture and worse to embrace Islam; half a million, mostly women and children, are left without sufficient food, clothing, or means of support. This exclusive of 6,000 massacred and 1,000 missing in the butcheries in Constantinople [p. 8]
The nation of 30,000,000 (some say 8,000,000) has been reduced to 1,000,000 [p. 9]
But there are some English people who think that there may be another way of escape than this of suicide for some of the widows and orphans of Armenians. They have obtained a house and land which can be turned into an [p. 12] industrial farm, under British protection, and they are assured by employers of labour in the place that there is a demand for such labour as these Armenian refugees might perform [p. 13].
Contents
A Haunting Voice (p. 17)
The Darkened West (p. 18)
“Such As Sit in Darkness and in the Shadow of Death” (p. 19)
The Spectre of the Brocken (p. 20)
A Dream at Scutari (p. 21)
Harvest Here and There (p. 22)
England and Armenia (p. 23)
Thy Neighbour (p. 24)
A Call to England (p. 25)
Two Voices (p. 26)
The Crusades—Then and Now (p. 27)
Banner of England (pp. 28-29)
A Contrast (p. 30)
A Sunday in Armenia (p. 31)
A Cry for the Shepherd pp. 32-33)
At Arabkir (pp. 34-35)
In the Burning Church at Oorfah (pp. 36-37)
Tried in the Fire (pp. 38-39)
The Parable of Aboukaiatyan: The Martyred Pastor of Oorfah (p. 40)
The Christ-King of Edessa (p. 41)
A Cry from Edessa (pp. 42-43)
Schakhé, the Brave (p. 44)
The Madness of Despair: Ottoman Bank, Aug. 26th, 1896) (p. 45)
“Out of the Deep have I called Unto Thee, Lord, Hear My Voice” (pp. 46-47)
Peace—False and True (p. 48)
A Voice from Sancta Sophia (p. 49)
British Interests (pp. 50-51)
A Nation’s Funeral (p. 52)
The Czar at Balmoral: 24th Sept., 1896 (p. 53)
To W. E. Gladstone: Liverpool, September 24th, 1896 (p. 54)
In Memory of September 23, 1896 (p. 55)
Hate’s After-Glow—Love’s Morning Star (p. 56)
Quomodo Sedet Sola Civitas: Armenian Meeting in St. James’s Hall, Monday, 19th October, 1896 (p. 57)
Appendix
A Daily Prayer for Armenia (p. 58)
Hymn for the Armenian Relief Fund (p. 59)
