Chapter 1

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GEORGIAN POETRY

1920-1922

EDITED BY SIR EDWARD MARSH

TO ALICE MEYNELL

The Poetry Bookshop 35 Devonshire St. Theobalds Rd. London W.C.1

MCMXXII

PREFATORY NOTE

When the fourth volume of this series was published three years ago, many of the critics who had up till then, as Horace Walpole said of God, been the dearest creatures in the world to me, took another turn. Not only did they very properly disapprove my choice of poems: they went on to write as if the Editor of 'Georgian Poetry' were a kind of public functionary, like the President of the Royal Academy; and they asked--again, on this assumption, very properly--who was E.M. that he should bestow and withhold crowns and sceptres, and decide that this or that poet was or was not to count.

This, in the words of Pirate Smee, was 'a kind of a compliment', but it was also, to quote the same hero, 'galling'; and I have wished for an opportunity of disowning the pretension which I found attributed to me of setting up as a pundit, or a pontiff, or a Petronius Arbiter; for I have neither the sure taste, nor the exhaustive reading, nor the ample leisure which would be necessary in any such role.

The origin of these books, which is set forth in the memoir of Rupert Brooke, was simple and humble. I found, ten years ago, that there were a number of writers doing work which appeared to me extremely good, but which was narrowly known; and I thought that anyone, however unprofessional and meagrely gifted, who presented a conspectus of it in a challenging and manageable form might be doing a good turn both to the poets and to the reading public. So, I think I may claim, it proved to be. The first volume seemed to supply a want. It was eagerly bought; the continuation of the affair was at once taken so much for granted as to be almost unavoidable; and there has been no break in the demand for the successive books. If they have won for themselves any position, there is no possible reason except the pleasure they have given.

Having entered upon a course of disclamation, I should like to make a mild protest against a further charge that Georgian Poetry has merely encouraged a small clique of mutually indistinguishable poetasters to abound in their own and each other's sense or nonsense. It is natural that the poets of a generation should have points in common; but to my fond eye those who have graced these collections look as diverse as sheep to their shepherd, or the members of a Chinese family to their uncle; and if there is an allegation which I would 'deny with both hands', it is this: that an insipid sameness is the chief characteristic of an anthology which offers--to name almost at random seven only out of forty (oh ominous academic number!)--the work of Messrs. Abercrombie, Davies, de la Mare, Graves, Lawrence, Nichols and Squire.

The ideal 'Georgian Poetry'--a book which would err neither by omission nor by inclusion, and would contain the best, and only the best poems of the best, and only the best poets of the day--could only be achieved, if at all, by dint of a Royal Commission. The present volume is nothing of the kind.

I may add one word bearing on my aim in selection. Much admired modern work seems to me, in its lack of inspiration and its disregard of form, like gravy imitating lava. Its upholders may retort that much of the work which I prefer seems to them, in its lack of inspiration and its comparative finish, like tapioca imitating pearls. Either view--possibly both--may be right. I will only say that with an occasional exception for some piece of rebelliousness or even levity which may have taken my fancy, I have tried to choose no verse but such as in Wordsworth's phrase

The high and tender Muses shall accept With gracious smile, deliberately pleased.

There are seven new-comers--Messrs. Armstrong, Blunden, Hughes, Kerr, Prewett and Quennell, and Miss Sackville-West. Thanks and acknowledgments are due to Messrs. Jonathan Cape, Chatto and Windus, R. Cobden-Sanderson, Constable, W. Collins, Heinemann, Hodder and Stoughton, John Lane, Macmillan, Martin Secker, Selwyn and Blount, Sidgwick and Jackson, and the Golden Cockerel Press; and to the Editors of 'The Cbapbook', 'The London Mercury' and 'The Westminster Gazette'.

E. M.

July, 1922

CONTENTS

LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE

Ryton Firs

MARTIN ARMSTRONG

The Buzzards (from 'The Buzzards') Honey Harvest Miss Thompson Goes Shopping (from 'The Buzzards')

EDMUND BLUNDEN

The Poor Man's Pig (from 'The Shepherd') Almswomen (from 'The Waggoner') Perch-fishing " " " The Giant Puffball (from 'The Shepherd') The Child's Grave " " " April Byeway " " "

WILLIAM H. DAVIES

The Captive Lion (from 'The Song of Life') A Bird's Anger " " " The Villain " " " Love's Caution " " " Wasted Hours (from 'The Hour of Magic') The Truth (from 'The Song of Life')

WALTER DE LA MARE

The Moth (from 'The Veil') 'Sotto Voce' " " Sephina (from 'Flora ') Titmouse (from 'The Veil') Suppose (from 'Flora') The Corner Stone (from 'The Veil')

JOHN DRINKWATER

Persuasion (from 'Seeds of Time')

JOHN FREEMAN

I Will Ask (from 'Poems New and Old') The Evening Sky " " " The Caves " " " Moon-Bathers (from 'Music') In Those Old Days (from 'Poems New and Old') Caterpillars (from 'Music') Change " "

WILFRID GIBSON

Fire (from 'Neighbours') Barbara Fell " " Philip and Phoebe Ware " " By the Weir " " Worlds " "

ROBERT GRAVES

Lost Love (from 'The Pier-Glass') Morning Phoenix " " A Lover Since Childhood Sullen Moods The Pier-Glass (from 'The Pier-Glass') The Troll's Nosegay " " Fox's Dingle " " The General Elliott (from 'On English Poetry') The Patchwork Bonnet (from 'The Pier-Glass')

RICHARD HUGHES

The Singing Furies (from 'Gipsy-Night') Moonstruck " " Vagrancy " " Poets, Painters, Puddings "

WILLIAM KERR

In Memoriam D. O. M. Past and Present The Audit The Apple Tree Her New-Year Posy Counting Sheep The Trees at Night The Dead

D. H. LAWRENCE

Snake

HAROLD MONRO

Thistledown (from 'Real Property') Real Property " " " Unknown Country " " "

ROBERT NICHOLS

Night Rhapsody (from 'Aurelia') November " "

J. D. C. FELLOW

After London On a Friend who died suddenly upon the Seashore Tenebrae When All is Said

FRANK PREWETT

To my Mother in Canada Voices of Women (from 'Poems') The Somme Valley " " Burial Stones " " Snow-Buntings " " The Kelso Road " " Baldon Lane " " Come Girl, and Embrace "

PETER QUENNELL

Procne A Man to a Sunflower Perception Pursuit

V. SACKVILLE-WEST

A Saxon Song (from 'Orchard and Vineyard') Mariana in the North " " " Full Moon " " " Sailing Ships " " " Trio " " " Bitterness " " " Evening " " "

EDWARD SHANKS

The Rock Pool (from 'The Island of Youth') The Glade " " " Memory " " " Woman's Song The Wind A Lonely Place

J. C. SQUIRE

Elegy (from 'Poems,' 2nd series) Meditation in Lamplight " " Late Snow " "

FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG

Seascape Scirocco The Quails Song at Santa Cruz

BIBLIOGRAPHY

* * * * *

LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE

RYTON FIRS

'The Dream'

All round the knoll, on days of quietest air, Secrets are being told; and if the trees Speak out--let them make uproar loud as drums-- 'Tis secrets still, shouted instead of whisper'd.

There must have been a warning given once: No tree, on pain of withering and sawfly, To reach the slimmest of his snaky toes Into this mounded sward and rumple it; All trees stand back: taboo is on this soil.--

The trees have always scrupulously obeyed. The grass, that elsewhere grows as best it may Under the larches, countable long nesh blades, Here in clear sky pads the ground thick and close As wool upon a Southdown wether's back; And as in Southdown wool, your hand must sink Up to the wrist before it find the roots. A bed for summer afternoons, this grass; But in the Spring, not too softly entangling For lively feet to dance on, when the green Flashes with daffodils. From Marcle way, From Dymock, Kempley, Newent, Bromesberrow, Redmarley, all the meadowland daffodils seem Running in golden tides to Ryton Firs, To make the knot of steep little wooded hills Their brightest show: O bella eta de l'oro! Now I breathe you again, my woods of Ryton: Not only golden with your daffodil-fires Lying in pools on the loose dusky ground Beneath the larches, tumbling in broad rivers Down sloping grass under the cherry trees And birches: but among your branches clinging A mist of that Ferrara-gold I first Loved in the easy hours then green with you; And as I stroll about you now, I have Accompanying me--like troops of lads and lasses Chattering and dancing in a shining fortune-- Those mornings when your alleys of long light And your brown rosin-scented shadows were Enchanted with the laughter of my boys.

'The Voices in the Dream'

Follow my heart, my dancing feet, Dance as blithe as my heart can beat. Only can dancing understand What a heavenly way we pass Treading the green and golden land, Daffodillies and grass.

I had a song, too, on my road, But mine was in my eyes; For Malvern Hills were with me all the way, Singing loveliest visible melodies Blue as a south-sea bay; And ruddy as wine of France Breadths of new-turn'd ploughland under them glowed. 'Twas my heart then must dance To dwell in my delight; No need to sing when all in song my sight Moved over hills so musically made And with such colour played.-- And only yesterday it was I saw Veil'd in streamers of grey wavering smoke My shapely Malvern Hills. That was the last hail-storm to trouble spring: He came in gloomy haste, Pusht in front of the white clouds quietly basking, In such a hurry he tript against the hills And stumbling forward spilt over his shoulders All his black baggage held, Streaking downpour of hail. Then fled dismayed, and the sun in golden glee And the high white clouds laught down his dusky ghost.

For all that's left of winter Is moisture in the ground. When I came down the valley last, the sun Just thawed the grass and made me gentle turf, But still the frost was bony underneath. Now moles take burrowing jaunts abroad, and ply Their shovelling hands in earth As nimbly as the strokes Of a swimmer in a long dive under water. The meadows in the sun are twice as green For all the scatter of fresh red mounded earth, The mischief of the moles: No dullish red, Glostershire earth new-delved In April! And I think shows fairest where These rummaging small rogues have been at work. If you will look the way the sunlight slants Making the grass one great green gem of light, Bright earth, crimson and even Scarlet, everywhere tracks The rambling underground affairs of moles: Though 'tis but kestrel-bay Looking against the sun.

But here's the happiest light can lie on ground, Grass sloping under trees Alive with yellow shine of daffodils! If quicksilver were gold, And troubled pools of it shaking in the sun It were not such a fancy of bickering gleam As Ryton daffodils when the air but stirs. And all the miles and miles of meadowland The spring makes golden ways, Lead here, for here the gold Grows brightest for our eyes, And for our hearts lovelier even than love. So here, each spring, our daffodil festival.

How smooth and quick the year Spins me the seasons round! How many days have slid across my mind Since we had snow pitying the frozen ground! Then winter sunshine cheered The bitter skies; the snow, Reluctantly obeying lofty winds, Drew off in shining clouds, Wishing it still might love With its white mercy the cold earth beneath. But when the beautiful ground Lights upward all the air, Noon thaws the frozen eaves, And makes the rime on post and paling steam Silvery blue smoke in the golden day. And soon from loaded trees in noiseless woods The snows slip thudding down, Scattering in their trail Bright icy sparkles through the glittering air; And the fir-branches, patiently bent so long, Sigh as they lift themselves to rights again. Then warm moist hours steal in, Such as can draw the year's First fragrance from the sap of cherry wood Or from the leaves of budless violets; And travellers in lanes Catch the hot tawny smell Reynard's damp fur left as he sneakt marauding

Across from gap to gap: And in the larch woods on the highest boughs The long-eared owls like grey cats sitting still Peer down to quiz the passengers below.

Light has killed the winter and all dark dreams. Now winds live all in light, Light has come down to earth and blossoms here, And we have golden minds. From out the long shade of a road high-bankt, I came on shelving fields; And from my feet cascading, Streaming down the land, Flickering lavish of daffodils flowed and fell; Like sunlight on a water thrill'd with haste, Such clear pale quivering flame, But a flame even more marvellously yellow. And all the way to Ryton here I walkt Ankle-deep in light. It was as if the world had just begun; And in a mind new-made Of shadowless delight My spirit drank my flashing senses in, And gloried to be made Of young mortality. No darker joy than this Golden amazement now Shall dare intrude into our dazzling lives: Stain were it now to know Mists of sweet warmth and deep delicious colour, Those lovable accomplices that come Befriending languid hours.

* * * * *

MARTIN ARMSTRONG

THE BUZZARDS

When evening came and the warm glow grew deeper And every tree that bordered the green meadows And in the yellow cornfields every reaper And every corn-shock stood above their shadows Flung eastward from their feet in longer measure, Serenely far there swam in the sunny height A buzzard and his mate who took their pleasure Swirling and poising idly in golden light. On great pied motionless moth-wings borne along, So effortless and so strong, Cutting each other's paths, together they glided, Then wheeled asunder till they soared divided Two valleys' width (as though it were delight To part like this, being sure they could unite So swiftly in their empty, free dominion), Curved headlong downward, towered up the sunny steep, Then, with a sudden lift of the one great pinion, Swung proudly to a curve and from its height Took half a mile of sunlight in one long sweep.

And we, so small on the swift immense hillside, Stood tranced, until our souls arose uplifted On those far-sweeping, wide, Strong curves of flight,--swayed up and hugely drifted, Were washed, made strong and beautiful in the tide Of sun-bathed air. But far beneath, beholden Through shining deeps of air, the fields were golden And rosy burned the heather where cornfields ended.

And still those buzzards wheeled, while light withdrew Out of the vales and to surging slopes ascended, Till the loftiest-flaming summit died to blue.

HONEY HARVEST

Late in March, when the days are growing longer And sight of early green Tells of the coming spring and suns grow stronger, Round the pale willow-catkins there are seen The year's first honey-bees Stealing the nectar: and bee-masters know This for the first sign of the honey-flow.

Then in the dark hillsides the Cherry-trees Gleam white with loads of blossom where the gleams Of piled snow lately hung, and richer streams The honey. Now, if chilly April days Delay the Apple-blossom, and the May's First week come in with sudden summer weather, The Apple and the Hawthorn bloom together, And all day long the plundering hordes go round And every overweighted blossom nods. But from that gathered essence they compound Honey more sweet than nectar of the gods.

Those blossoms fall ere June, warm June that brings The small white Clover. Field by scented field, Round farms like islands in the rolling weald, It spreads thick-flowering or in wildness springs Short-stemmed upon the naked downs, to yield A richer store of honey than the Rose, The Pink, the Honeysuckle. Thence there flows Nectar of clearest amber, redolent Of every flowery scent That the warm wind upgathers as he goes.

In mid-July be ready for the noise Of million bees in old Lime-avenues, As though hot noon had found a droning voice To ease her soul. Here for those busy crews Green leaves and pale-stemmed clusters of green strong flowers Build heavy-perfumed, cool, green-twilight bowers Whence, load by load, through the long summer days They fill their glassy cells With dark green honey, clear as chrysoprase, Which housewives shun; but the bee-master tells This brand is more delicious than all else.

In August-time, if moors are near at hand, Be wise and in the evening-twilight load Your hives upon a cart, and take the road By night: that, ere the early dawn shall spring And all the hills turn rosy with the Ling, Each waking hive may stand Established in its new-appointed land Without harm taken, and the earliest flights Set out at once to loot the heathery heights.

That vintage of the Heather yields so dense And glutinous a syrup that it foils Him who would spare the comb and drain from thence Its dark, full-flavoured spoils: For he must squeeze to wreck the beautiful Frail edifice. Not otherwise he sacks Those many-chambered palaces of wax.

Then let a choice of every kind be made, And, labelled, set upon your storehouse racks-- Of Hawthorn-honey that of almond smacks: The luscious Lime-tree-honey, green as jade: Pale Willow-honey, hived by the first rover: That delicate honey culled From Apple-blosson, that of sunlight tastes: And sunlight-coloured honey of the Clover. Then, when the late year wastes, When night falls early and the noon is dulled And the last warm days are over, Unlock the store and to your table bring Essence of every blossom of the spring. And if, when wind has never ceased to blow All night, you wake to roofs and trees becalmed In level wastes of snow, Bring out the Lime-tree-honey, the embalmed Soul of a lost July, or Heather-spiced Brown-gleaming comb wherein sleeps crystallised All the hot perfume of the heathery slope. And, tasting and remembering, live in hope.

MISS THOMPSON GOES SHOPPING

Miss Thompson In her lone cottage on the downs, at Home. With winds and blizzards and great crowns Of shining cloud, with wheeling plover And short grass sweet with the small white clover, Miss Thompson lived, correct and meek, A lonely spinster, and every week On market-day she used to go Into the little town below, Tucked in the great downs' hollow bowl Like pebbles gathered in a shoal.

She goes So, having washed her plates and cup a-Marketing. And banked the kitchen-fire up, Miss Thompson slipped upstairs and dressed, Put on her black (her second best), The bonnet trimmed with rusty plush, Peeped in the glass with simpering blush, From camphor-smelling cupboard took Her thicker jacket off the hook Because the day might turn to cold. Then, ready, slipped downstairs and rolled The hearthrug back; then searched about, Found her basket, ventured out, Snecked the door and paused to lock it And plunge the key in some deep pocket. Then as she tripped demurely down The steep descent, the little town Spread wider till its sprawling street Enclosed her and her footfalls beat On hard stone pavement, and she felt Those throbbing ecstasies that melt Through heart and mind, as, happy, free, Her small, prim personality Merged into the seething strife Of auction-marts and city life.