Rats in the trenches: illustrating the poem 'Living sepulchres', in a book of poems by Richard Aldington

Hand-coloured woodcut illustrating the poem 'Living sepulchers', the fifth illustration in a book of poems by British poet and novelist Richard Aldington (1892-1926), published by Beaumont Press, London, 1919. This illustration is on p. 21. The image depicts four huge rats running in and out of the trenches. The poem describes it graphically: '...But the ghastly scurrying of huge rats/ Swollen with feeding upon men's flesh/ Filled me with shrinking dread.' The work is taken from one of a series of black-and-white sketches that Nash inscribed with colour notes. These sketches are held in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. There are copies of this book without the hand-colouring at the Minories, Colchester and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 'Images of war' was Aldington's second volume of poetry.