Ewart Alan Mackintosh |
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Mackintosh, widely regarded (along with C. H. Sorley) as being one of Scotland's finest war poets, was born in Brighton of Highland parents and educated at St Paul's School and Christ Church College, Oxford, where he studied classics. His earliest poetry is influenced by W. B. Yeats (1865-1939) and the Celtic Twilight school whose Scottish followers included William Sharp and William Black; it was World War I which brought him to maturity as a poet, moving from exultation and excitement to horror and anguish. Mackintosh knew Gaelic as a child and had perfected it as a student, and folk-song influenced his songs, some of which became widely popular with the Scottish troops. He was sent to the Western Front with the 5th Seaforth Highlanders in July 1915, and was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry at the Somme. He was invalided home after being gassed at High Wood, and was offered a post instructing cadets in Cambridge, but he chose to return to France and was killed at the Battle of Cambrai.
AC
A Highland Regiment (1917); War, the Liberator (1918); Miserere (1919).
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