The County Series of Contemporary Poetry No. VIII
Norfolk, Suffolk, and Lincoln
Contemporary East-Anglian Poetry No. VIII.
S. Fowler Wright, (Editor of Poetry and The Play)
Fowler Wright Ltd., High Holborn, W.C.1
MDCCCCXXVIII - 1928
PREFACE by CYRIL ARTHUR FORTESCUE MASON. Seaford, 1927.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
THIS volume is one of a series of County Anthologies of Contemporary Poetry, issued in connection with the work of the Empire Poetry League, but the contributions included are not in any way confined to members of that organization, though it may naturally be the case that the majority of the authors concerned are among its supporters.
So compiled, this series is not intended to be comprehensive, though it is representative, and especially of the younger writers, from among whom must come the makers of English poetry for the next half-century.
But this claim of "representative" will almost certainly be challenged by the "modernist" fraternity, and their supporters.
The very impartiality with which I have edited these, and earlier, anthologies has caused me to be accused of hostility to vers libre, and more broadly to experimental as opposed to traditional forms of poetic expression. But the fact is, as any one may discover who will make sufficient inquiry, that the bulk of such work is negligible, outside the very narrow circle of the clique which cultivates it in a form which it would be outside the purpose of this introduction to consider in detail.
Where it exists, and wherever its content is anything more than despicable, I have never failed to recognize it, as in the highly experimental work of Mr Olaf Stapledon, in Poets of Merseyside, or the very "modern" art of Mrs Dawson Scott, which found its first recognition in the pages of Poetry, and afterwards in the first series of Voices on the Wind, - to the preface of which volume I recommend any who are sufficiently interested, where these aspects of modern poetry are discussed more fully.
So compiled, and with an impartial purpose of showing what the poetry of today actually is, rather than that which any of us would wish it to be, this series can hardly fail to be of some permanent interest and importance.
It may be said that the poems vary greatly in quality. That is true. I have endeavoured to judge broadly and tolerantly, choosing different poems for different and sometimes opposite excellencies; only, and always, requiring that they shall be sincere in expression, and in the worship, however humble, of that beauty which all art is born to serve.
Those of us who are neither deaf to the music of words, nor ignorant of the technique of poetic construction, may yet realize that as "the life is more than meat, and the body than raiment," so poetry is degraded from its highest function if it be first regarded as an esoteric art, producing curiously-patterned words as subjects for the admiration of the scholar, or the dissecting knife of the critic, rather than a vitalizing force, which should be welcomed in any garb, however lowly.
It has been suggested that each volume of this series should contain some biographical or other data of the authors concerned, but that would be outside the purpose of the work in which we are interested, which is to extend the love and cultivation of English poetry, rather than the knowledge of those who write it. Besides, the revelation of individuality is contained more certainly in the work of any artist than in the records of his ancestry or occupation. Soldiers and mechanics, peers and butchers, bankers and labourers, men and women of wealth and poverty, of toil and leisure, literate and illiterate, united in the love and practice of poetry, have contributed to make these pages representative of the interests and aspirations of their time and race.
Poetry is the one art in which the British race is supreme, and by which it will be remembered when its material power may be no more than a legend of history. It is so widely read, and so readily appreciated, because we are a nation of poets. For among poets must be the only audience that poetry can ever win.
In conclusion, a word of thanks is due to the many lovers of literature, editors, librarians, and members of the E.P.L., in all parts of the country, through whose generous enthusiasm and unselfish help the production of these books has been made possible. They are too numerous for individual mention, and it would be invidious to make a selection among the names of those who have shared in a common enterprise.
S. FOWLER WRIGHT.
(Editor of Poetry and the Play.)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS for permission to reprint are due to the Editor of the Anglo-French Review (for Dr Cloudesley Brereton's Ode to France); to the Editor of The Bookman (for Mr C. H. Lay's To a Bird); to the Editor of Country Life (for Dr Cloudesley Brereton's Night Piece); to the Editor of the Daily News (for Dr Cloudesley Brereton's Omen and Spring Cleaning); to the Editor of the English Review (for Mr C. H. Lay's Love's Ethic); to the Editor of the Hibbert Journal (for Dr Cloudesley Brereton's Pilgrims); to the Editor of the Morning Post (for Dr Cloudesley Brereton's At the Cenotaph); to the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette (for Dr Cloudesley Brereton's Ballad of Extreme Old Age and Nature's Green Room); to the Editor of The Quest (for Dr Cloudesley Brereton's Ad Fratrem Amissum, Mystical Union of Earth and Heaven and Lonely Odyssey of Life); to the Editor of Science Progress (for Dr Cloudesley Brereton's Death is Everywhere); to the Editor of the Westminster Gazette (for Dr Cloudesley Brereton's The Conscript Father); and to Messrs Jonathan Cape, Ltd (for Dr Cloudesley Brereton's The Sanctuary, The Soul's Vigil, The Soul Market, The Garden of Friendship and The Miracle).
CONTENTS
CANON RICHARD ABBAY
Life and Death
Templum Veneris
KIRBY BEDON
Ocean Cavalry
J. C. BIRD
To Alice
Landscape in October
Since Noon
CLOUDESLEY BRERETON
The Mystical Union of Earth and Heaven
The Crime of Creation
Pilgrims
Ad Fratrem Amissum
Death is Everywhere
The Norfolk Recruit's Farewell
At the Cenotaph
The Lonely Odyssey of Life
Ballad of Extreme Old Age
Nature's Green Room
Spring Cleaning
Omen
Night Piece
Ode to France
The Conscript Father
The Garden of Friendship
The Miracle
The Soul's Vigil
The Soul Market
The Sanctuary
ETHEL WYNNE CANDWELL
The East Anglian
Dunwich
FLORENCE M. DAW
East Anglia
REBBIE FREUER-WRIGHT
Suffolk Wild Flowers
CHARLES WILLIAM GODSON
Clee: an Idyll
February
EDWIN HEWITT
'Liza Green's' Lotment
MILDRED HILL
P�re Chagrin
Meditation
Peace
H. G. HUGHES
To Comfort Myself over a Dull Fire in February
R. W. KETTON-CREMER
Two Rural Epitaphs
Gibbet Corner, Sheringham
J. LAST
Evolution
Responsibility
A Weekend at Woodbridge and its Surroundings
Odd Quatrains Supplementary to those of Omar Khayy�m
C. H. LAY
To a Bird
To Suffolk
Love's Ethic
The Ghost
EDITH LIMB
Now You are Gone
WILLIAM MITCHELL
The Making of Poetry
The Master mind
Man, Know Thyself
Waves in Storm and Calm
A. L. MORTON
"I Behold the Stars at Mortal Wars "
H. BROADBERRY SEAMAN
The Norfolk Broads
St. Benet's Abbey
MOLLIE TATUM
Wolsey's Gateway, Ipswich
Old Suffolk
JAMES CHAPMAN WOODS
Tasso and Dante
Kismet
To the Vanished Muse
Wood-Waifs
Sanctuary
Saul
Cr�ve�ur-sur-Meuse
Siesta
The Healing of Simon
The Idol-Maker
A Dream in the Fen
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