General Books

On the night of the rains,water was oozing out fromthe sky's swollen stitches,a rash developed acrossthe meaning of the heavens. The wooden floors of my attic placestrove for a deeper tone,a hoarse callinggrew louder as I pacedtrying to see rain. I followed the gravity of the treasure huntwhere each bounce meant a slapacross a table top of tension,where the window basted winter black rainand... more...

In these days when the old civilisation is crumbling beneath our feet, the thought of poetry crosses the mind like the dear memory of things that have long since passed away. In our passionate desire for the new era, it is difficult to refrain oneself from the commonplace practice of speculating on the effects of warfare and of prophesying all manner of novel rebirths. But it may be well for us to... more...

How Lisa loved the King. Six hundred years ago, in Dante’s time,Before his cheek was furrowed by deep rhyme;When Europe, fed afresh from Eastern story,Was like a garden tangled with the gloryOf flowers hand-planted and of flowers air-sown,Climbing and trailing, budding and full-blown,Where purple bells are tossed amid pink stars,And springing blades, green troops in innocent wars,Crowd every shady... more...

PREFACE There are two great traditions of womanhood. One presents the Madonna brooding over the mystery of motherhood; the other, more confusedly, tells of the acolyte, the priestess, the clairvoyante of the unknown gods. This latter exists complete in herself, a personality as definite and as significant as a symbol. She is behind all the processes of art, though she rarely becomes a conscious artist,... more...

 1. How, my dear Mary,—are you critic-bitten (For vipers kill, though dead) by some review, That you condemn these verses I have written, Because they tell no story, false or true? What, though no mice are caught by a young kitten, _5 May it not leap and play as grown cats do, Till its claws come? Prithee, for this one time, Content thee with a visionary rhyme.  2. What hand would crush... more...

BED IN SUMMER In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer, quite the other way,— I have to go to bed by day. I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, Or hear the grown-up people’s feet Still going past me in the street. And does it not seem hard to you, When all the sky is clear and blue, And I should like so much to play, To have to go to bed by... more...

NOTE The motif of the story embodied in the following poem was crudely outlined in a brief sketch printed in an early collection of the authors verse, and subsequently cancelled for a purpose not until now accomplished. Wyndham Towers is not to be confused with this discarded sketch, the text of which has furnished only a phrase, or an indirect suggestion, here and there. That the writer's method,... more...

PART I. I. The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun. And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,And lifts his palms for the first... more...

WHEN YOU KNOW A FELLOW   When you get to know a fellow, know his joys    and know his cares,  When you've come to understand him and the    burdens that he bears,  When you've learned the fight he's making and    the troubles in his way,  Then you find that he is different than you    thought him yesterday.  You find his faults are trivial and there's not... more...

PREFACE. It is singular that the first great age of English lyric poetry should have been also the one great age of English dramatic poetry: but it is hardly less singular that the lyric school should have advanced as steadily as the dramatic school declined from the promise of its dawn. Born with Marlowe, it rose at once with Shakespeare to heights inaccessible before and since and for ever, to sink... more...