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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