GEORGIAN POETRY 1918-19 ***

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GEORGIAN

POETRY

1918-1919

EDITED BY SIR EDWARD MARSH

TO

THOMAS HARDY

EIGHTH THOUSAND

THE POETRY BOOKSHOP 35 Devonshire Street Theobalds Road W.C.1 MCMXX

PREFATORY NOTE

This is the fourth volume of the present series. I hope it may be thought to show that what for want of a better word is called Peace has not interfered with the writing of good poetry.

Thanks and acknowledgements are due to Messrs. Beaumont, Blackwell, Collins, Constable, Fifield, Heinemann, Seeker, Selwyn & Blount, and Sidgwick & Jackson; and to the Editors of 'The Anglo-French Review', 'The Athenæum', 'The Chapbook', 'Land and Water', 'The Nation', 'The New Statesman', 'The New Witness', 'The New World', 'The Owl', 'The Spectator', 'To-day', 'Voices', and 'The Westminster Gazette'.

E. M.

September, 1919.

CONTENTS

LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE

Witchcraft: New Style

GORDON BOTTOMLEY

Littleholme

FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG

Invocation (from 'Poems') Prothalamion February Lochanilaun Lettermore Song The Leaning Elm

WILLIAM H. DAVIES

Lovely Dames (from 'Forty New Poems') When Yon Full Moon On Hearing Mrs. Woodhouse Play the Harpsichord Birds Oh, Sweet Content! A Child's Pet England (from 'Forty New Poems') The Bell

WALTER DE LA MARE

The Sunken Garden (from 'Motley') Moonlight The Tryst The Linnet The Veil The Three Strangers (from 'Motley') The Old Men Fare Well

JOHN DRINKWATER

Deer (from 'Loyalties') Moonlit Apples (from 'Tides') Southampton Bells (from 'Loyalties') Chorus (from 'Lincoln') Habitation (from 'Loyalties') Passage

JOHN FREEMAN

O Muse Divine The Wakers (from 'Memories of Childhood') The Body Ten O'clock No More The Fugitive The Alde Nearness Night and Night The Herd

WILFRID WILSON GIBSON

Wings (from 'Home') The Parrots The Cakewalk Driftwood Quiet (from 'Home') Reveille

ROBERT GRAVES

A Ballad of Nursery Rhyme (from 'Country Sentiment') A Frosty Night True Johnny The Cupboard The Voice of Beauty Drowned Rocky Acres

D. H. LAWRENCE

Seven Seals (from 'New Poems')

HAROLD MONRO

Gravity Goldfish Dog The Nightingale Near the House Man Carrying Bale

THOMAS MOULT

For Bessie in the Garden 'Truly he hath a Sweet Bed' Lovers' Lane

ROBERT NICHOLS

The Sprig of Lime Seventeen The Stranger 'O Nightingale my Heart' The Pilgrim

J. D. C. FELLOW

The Temple

SIEGFRIED SASSOON

Sick Leave (from 'War Poems') Banishment Repression of War Experience Does it Matter Concert Party Songbooks of the War The Portrait Thrushes (from 'War Poems') Everyone Sang

EDWARD SHANKS

A Night-Piece (from 'The Queen of China') In Absence The Glow-worm The Cataclysm A Hollow Elm Fête Galante (from 'The Queen of China') Song

FREDEGOND SHOVE

A Dream in Early Spring (from 'Dreams and Journeys') The World The New Ghost A Man Dreams that he is the Creator

J. C. SQUIRE

Rivers (from 'Poems, First Series') Epitaph in Old Mode Sonnet (from 'Poems, First Series') The Birds (from 'The Birds and other Poems')

W. J. TURNER

Silence (from 'The Dark Fire') Kent in War Talking with Soldiers Song The Princess Peace Death

LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE

WITCHCRAFT: NEW STYLE

The sun drew off at last his piercing fires. Over the stale warm air, dull as a pond And moveless in the grey quieted street, Blue magic of a summer evening glowed. The sky, that had been dazzling stone all day, Hollowed in smooth hard brightness, now dissolved To infinite soft depth, and smoulder'd down Low as the roofs, dark burning blue, and soared Clear to that winking drop of liquid silver, The first exquisite star. Now the half-light Tidied away the dusty litter parching Among the cobbles, veiled in the colour of distance Shabby slates and brickwork mouldering, turn'd The hunchback houses into patient things Resting; and golden windows now began.

A little brisk grey slattern of a woman, Pattering along in her loose-heel'd clogs, Pushed the brass-barr'd door of a public-house; The spring went hard against her; hand and knee Shoved their weak best. As the door poised ajar, Hullabaloo of talking men burst out, A pouring babble of inflamed palaver, And overriding it and shouted down High words, jeering or downright, broken like Crests that leap and stumble in rushing water. Just as the door went wide and she stepped in, 'She cannot do it!' one was bawling out: A glaring hulk of flesh with a bull's voice. He finger'd with his neckerchief, and stretched His throat to ease the anger of dispute, Then spat to put