GUNNER NORMAN ALGERNON BURGESS
CANADIAN FIELD ARTILLERY
22ND SEPTEMBER 1917 AGE 34
BURIED: LA TARGETTE BRITISH CEMETERY, NEUVILLE-ST VAAST, FRANCE
This inscription is a contraction of the best-known lines - I could say the only known lines - of the French poet Louis-Rose-Eiennette Gerard, known as Rosemonde Gerard (1871-1953). They come from L'Eternelle Chanson, (The Eternal Song), which she dedicated to her husband, Edmond Rostand (1868-1918):
Car, vois-tu, chaque jour je t'aime davantage,
Aujourd'hui plus qu' hier et biend moins que demain.
For, you see, each day I love you more,
Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.
Gerard intended it as a declaration of ever-growing love for her husband; Mrs Burgess as a declaration of undying love for hers.
Norman Algernon Burgess was born in Robertsbridge, Sussex in 1883 where his father ran a corn and seed merchant's business. At some point he emigrated to Canada from where he enlisted, in Winnipeg, on 17 December 1914.
Burgess served with the 2nd Canadian Division Ammunition Column and came back to England to be married to Joan Frances Hodson in Salehurst on 2 September 1915. Just over two years later, in the middle of a mass of adminstrative details the war diary reported:
22 September 1917: "4 OR on leave. No 367 Gnr Burgess, N.A. died. Medical Officers report obstruction of Glotles [glottis?]. 5 OR to First Army Rest Camp ... "