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MODERN VERSE

DURING the past decade there has been a remarkable renascence of poetry both in England and America. A new poetry has risen, differing from the old in particulars but like it in its attempt to express the spirit of the age and in its appeal to the popular taste of the time. The difference is not merely in form, for here we find the same rhymeschemes and the same measures. It is different not merely in its rejection of "poetic language," for poetry of any period uses a terminology which is characteristic of its respective age. It is not markedly different in its use of subjects, for at particular eras poetry turns to material which at the time seems unsuitable to verse.

This new poetry, like the old poetry, strives for a direct realization of life; it discards forms, language, and subjects that would introduce any barrier to a complete understanding of the concrete or would prevent the simple expression of the individual emotion. It has set before itself an ideal of absolute simplicity and sincerity. And here it is well to remember that the new poetry does not discard tradition, for it is aware of the fact that it is merely following the best literary tradition when it attempts to find a speech and express a mood suited to the time. The best poetry has always been written in the language of its time and even when it has adopted legends or romances of some earlier period it has always sought to use them as the skeletons for the body and spirit of the particular era.

The ultimate justification for a new poetry is to be found in the study of such masters as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning, and if we may find some of these more or less congenial to our modern taste, it is because the age which was reflected in their verse would have pleased us just as much or as little as their respective age. In so far as each wrote poetry of a high order, in that proportion was the poet a spokesman of his age.

It should be a source of encouragement, then, that the poetry of to-day should be "new," that, superficially at least, it should seem to discard traditions and should seem to be different. We should not expect it or wish it to be Victorian in an un-Victorian

age.

As one poet has said, W. B. Yeats, who has been a strong force in the new movement, "We were weary of all this. We wanted to get rid not only of rhetoric but of poetic diction. We tried to strip away everything that was artificial, to get a style like speech, as simple as the simplest prose, like a cry of the heart."

With all things contemporary it is impossible to pass a final judgment. It is best to read and enjoy and be slow in saying, "This is great and will last," or "This is trivial and will soon pass."

It is inspiring to be able to select such a substantial amount of interesting verse fron so many worthy and sincere writers who are doing much to make the world a better place in which to live. It is inspiring to be able to turn the pages of this book and find this great tradition of English literature still abounding in richness and full of promise for the future. .

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LAURENCE BINYON

FOR THE FALLEN

WITH proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,

England mourns for her dead across the

sea.

Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,

Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal

Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres. There is music in the midst of desolation And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,

Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.

They were stanch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the daytime;

They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,

Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,

To the innermost heart of their own land they are known

As the stars are known to the Night;

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RAIN-SUNKEN roof, grown green and thin
For sparrows' nests and starlings' nests;
Dishevelled eaves; unwieldy doors,
Cracked rusty pump, and oaken floors
And idly-pencilled names and jests
Upon the posts within.

The light pales at the spider's lust,
The wind tangs through the shattered pane:
An empty hop-poke spreads across
The gaping frame to mend the loss
And keeps out sun as well as rain,
Mildewed with clammy dust.

The smell of apples stored in hay
And homely cattle-cake is there.
Use and disuse have come to terms,
The walls are hollowed out by worms,
But men's feet keep the mid-floor bare
And free from worse decay.

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F. W. BOURDILLON

LIGHT

THE night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

ROBERT BRIDGES

THE WINNOWERS

BETWIXT two billows of the downs
The little hamlet lies,

And nothing sees but the bald crowns
Of the hills, and the blue skies.

Clustering beneath the long descent
And grey slopes of the wold,
The red roofs nestle, oversprent
With lichen yellow as gold.

We found it in the mid-day sun

Basking, what time of year The thrush his singing has begun,

Ere the first leaves appear.

High from his load a woodman pitched
His faggots on the stack:
Knee-deep in straw the cattle twitched

Sweet hay from crib and rack:

And from the barn hard by was borne A steady muffled din,

By which we knew that threshèd corn Was winnowing, and went in.

The sunbeams on the motey air

Streamed through the open door, And on the brown arms moving bare,

And the grain upon the floor.

One turns the crank, one stoops to feed
The hopper, lest it lack,
One in the bushel scoops the seed,
One stands to hold the sack.

We watched the good grain rattle down,
And the awns fly in the draught;
To see us both so pensive grown
The honest labourers laughed:

Merry they were, because the wheat
Was clean and plump and good,
Pleasant to hand and eye, and meet
For market and for food.

It chanced we from the city were,
And had not gat us free

In spirit from the store and stir
Of its immensity:

But here we found ourselves again.

Where humble harvests bring After much toil but little grain, 'Tis merry winnowing.

SO SWEET LOVE SEEMED

So sweet love seemed that April morn
When first we kissed beside the thorn,
So strangely sweet, it was not strange
We thought that love could never change.

But I can tell let truth be told
That love will change in growing old;
Though day by day is naught to see,
So delicate his motions be.

And in the end 'twill come to pass
Quite to forget what once he was,
Nor even in fancy to recall
The pleasure that was all in all.

His little spring, that sweet we found
So deep in summer floods is drowned.
I wonder, bathed in joy complete,
How love so young could be so sweet.

NIGHTINGALES

BEAUTIFUL must be the mountains whence ye come,

And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom

Ye learn your song: Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,

Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air

Bloom the year long.

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THE MOON

THY beauty haunts me heart and soul,
Oh thou fair Moon, so close and bright;
Thy beauty makes me like the child,

That cries aloud to own thy light:
The little child that lifts each arm
To press thee to her bosom warm.

Though there are birds that sing this night With thy white beams across their throats

Let my deep silence speak for me.

More than for them their sweetest notes: Who worships thee till music fails Is greater than thy nightingales.

LEISURE

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

RICH DAYS

WELCOME to you, rich Autumn days,
Ere comes the cold, leaf-picking wind;
When golden stooks are seen in fields,

All standing arm-in-arm entwined;
And gallons of sweet cider seen
On trees in apples red and green..

With mellow pears that cheat our teeth, Which melt that tongues may suck them in

With cherries red, and blue-black plums,
Now sweet and soft from stone to skin;
And woodnuts rich, to make us go
Into the loveliest lanes we know.

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WALTER DE LA MARE
THE LISTENERS

"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses

Of the forest's ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,

Above the Traveller's head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

"Is there anybody there?" he said. But no one descended to the Traveller; No head from the leaf-fringed sill Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, Where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

To that voice from the world of men:

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