The Works of Sydney Fowler Wright 1874 - 1965

The County Series of Contemporary Poetry No. II

Contemporary Devonshire & Cornwall Poetry No. II.
Chosen and edited by S. Fowler Wright
Preface by S. Fowler Wright, (Editor of Poetry and The Play)


ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

        Acknowledgments for permission to reprint are due to the following Editors and Publishers. The Editor of the 'Bookman' (for Stanley Stoke's 'Delight'); the Editor of the 'Western Weekly News' (for Stanley Stoke's 'Silver Cove'); Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton (for Joan Destin's 'Brown Bird').

PREFACE

        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.

        They are not all equally expert or experienced in craftsmanship. One - and not the least worthy - of the contributors to the first volume of the series, Warwickshire Poetry, is a girl of fourteen. Many others are of established reputation in contemporary literature. All are united in a common artistic purpose, and in the pursuit of ideality in an age which is tragic in some aspects of its materialism.

        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 anyone may discover who will make sufficient enquiry, 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 vitalising 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.

        Gathered from such diverse sources, there are yet certain broad deviations observable in the poetry of different counties, which are brought into unusual relief by this method of publication. They are rather variations in subject and outlook, than in any more technical qualities. Where they occur, they throw occasional unexpected lights upon the influences of environment, and the racial characteristics of the localities in which they originate. But it may be largely accidental that some counties appear to be much richer than others in their poetic output. Experience has shown that the response in universal, wherever an intelligent effort be made to organize the lovers of poetry, even in areas which have appeared the most hopeless and apathetic at the first enquiry.

        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).

CONTENTS
ALBERT ASH ALLEN
        Blossoms
        Capstone Hill
        The Missel Thrush
LILIAN M. ANDERSON
        Leave In 1917
CHARLES J. ARNELL
        To All Poets
        The Day And The Dream
RUTH BEVAN
        Talland (Near Polperro)
        The Golden Styx
CONRAD BONACINA, B.A.
        Leave Her -
        The Greater Love
        We Pass In Silence
BEATRICE CHASE
        The Dartmoor Road
        Lacking
GERTRUDE COMLEY
        Introductory
        Cometh The Day
        A Thanksgiving
        Hail And Farewell
        Love Me Little, Love Me Long
        Star-Dust
        The Road To Arcady
        Blind Sight
        The Promised Land
        Life-Philosophies
        Islands Of Sunset
        Life's Questing Pilgrim
JOAN DESTIN
        Brown Bird
EDWIN FAULKNER
        The Garden God
        In The Wood
R.A. FOSTER-MELLIAR, B.A.
        A Soul's Unveiling
        Having No Heart
        The Prodigal
        To Phyllis
        The Way Of Winter
        Till Death Divide
GEOFFREY FYSON
        E Pluribus Unus
        Only On Nights Like These
        Vimy Ridge
        Retrospect
        The Unchanging Lover
        Time Is A Stream
BEN R. GIBBS
        Adown The Dart
KATHLEEN E. GILLESPIE
        Lee Bay, Near Lynton
JOHN GOODGE
        From Cornish Heights
        Joie De Vie
FLORENCE L. HENDERSON
        A Nursing-Home
        The Path Across The Fields
MAY HUGHES
        Haldon Hills
        Dittisham On The Dart
BERNARD MOORE
        A Cornish Chorus
        The Butcher
        Tatters
        The Last Mile
HELEN MOORE
        The Little Blue Tits
        Moonrise Over Hartridge
BLANCHE G.H. MUDGE
        Worship
R. ISSELL PARTRIDGE
        Bolt Head
        Crossing The Bar
        A Devon Lane
        Spoils Of The Sea
        The Ferryman
        Cockle Women
        The Bargeman
        The Village Cobbler
        The Crabber
        A Character
ELIZABETH PAUL
        Spring: Cornwall
        A Prayer
        Moonlight
        Evening (St. Ives)
W. PENN-GASKELL
        Totnes
        Friendship
        In Memoriam
        Paradox
        A Solicitation
        The Settlement
        A Song
        A Devon Mill
        Estrangement
        Wisdom
        On Hearing The Andante Of The IX th. Symphony
        Futility
EDEN PHILLPOTTS
        In The Police Court
        The Way Of It
        The Master Builder
        Epitaph
C.J. PUGH
        Gratitude
        A Song
Sir ARTHUR QUILLER-COUCH, Litt.d.
        Upon New Year's Eve
MAISIE RADFORD
        So Leonardo Sang
        Motoring At Night
The Rev. G.L.M. READE
        In Memory
        Lord Kitchener And The British Heroes Of The Battle Of Jutland
        Sir John Henry Kennaway, Bart., C.B., P.C.
        The German Gun
        The House of Windsor
C. ELISSA SHARPLEY
                An Egyptian Queen
DIANE SHORE
        Painted Windows
        To A Snake
        The Innocence Of Flowers
LOUISE STEEVENS
        On A Picture By Sir John Lavery, A.R.A. (The Mother)
        The Lonely Child
        Armistice Day, 1922
        Prayer Of A Childless Woman
        In Memoriam, J.S.
        A Summer Day On The Wiltshire Downs
STANLEY STOKES
        Delight
        Silver Cove (Beer, 1932)
FRANCIS THWAITE
        Devon In June
        A Memory
        Winter
        The Blossom And The Bird
        Vale! Vale!
S.C. WILLIAMSON
        Under The Hill
        Isis
        A Stoic's Last Soliloquy
        A Prologue
        Tamsin
        Sonnet
HAROLD WINTLE
        Elysium
W.H. WOODZELL
        The Passing

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