Brad Gift John Anti-. A Foreword T HE FIFTH revised edition of Modern British Poetry continues in the direction of the earlier editions. It presumes to be inclusive but also critical, aware of the latest expressions of taste and technique but not neglectful of the power of tradition. It is, in short, a work of appraisal as well as a compilation. In order to make the summary as authoritative as possible, the entire field has been re-examined, the contributions by the outstanding authors have been emphasized, and the work of the younger poets has been given greater prominence. To do this, it has been necessary (as in the companion volume, Modern American Poetry) to omit several interesting poets. The editor regrets the omissions, but comforts himself with the thought that even a work of encyclopedic dimensions would fail to be sufficiently inclusive to satisfy every reader. Moreover, the severity of treatment has this advantage: though there are fewer names there are more poems to represent the poets and their range of accomplishment. The new edition has been revised still further. The biographical and bibliographical notes haye been brought sharply up to date. The preface has been amplified. Recent innovations which attempt to extend the domain of poetry have been recorded. More than ever, the volume hopes to reflect the variety of experience and vision, the sense of discovery which is the essential power of poetry. Although the editor believes he has favored no group, movement, or tendency at the expense of any other, he admits that he is less impressed by the repetition of accepted subjects and generally approved poetic formulas, however skillful, than by a distinctive inflection, even though it may lead to oddity, as in the case of Hopkins. This personal idiom, this “difference," may be difficult to define but it is impossible to mistake. . The choice of poems may seem wilful to some, but the selection has not been arbitrary. The editor cannot pretend that he has infallibly chosen only the best; but he maintains that he has included nothing which does not represent some phase of the period and does not reveal some aspect of the poet. To accomplish this he has mingled the well-known with the unfamiliar. A good poem remains a good poem no matter how often it has been reprinted, but its presence in anthologies is not necessarily a proof of its goodness. New blood is necded not only to quicken the life-stream of culture but to keep it fresh and powerful. It must be repeated that this collection is anything but a complete summary. Since the end of the Victorian era the work of the poets of England and Ireland has been so voluminous, the departures in form and subject matter have been so varied, that no editor would dare claim finality for his labors. Perhaps it is just as well; it might be asserted that finality, even if attainable, is undesirable. The duty of the anthologist, as one anthologist sees it, is to stimulate, not to satisfy, to whet the reader's appetite, not to surfeit it. Such a collection as this, if its purpose is achieved, should excite the reader's curiosity and rouse him to a closer reading of the poet's own volumes. The following pages are, as already implied, little more than a guide, a critical introduction, to characteristic figures and leading poetic tendencies. This anthology begins with Thomas Hardy, born in 1840; and the editor acknowledges a special indebtedness to that great figure not only for his general austere example, but for personal advice in the preparation of the early editions of this volume. Thanks must also be given to most of the living poets, too many to list, who have furnished invaluable data, helped in the final choice of selections, and in several instances have supplied new poems in manuscript. Acknowledgment must also be made to the publishers and agents without whose cooperation this compilation could not have been undertaken. For permission to reprint the poems copyright by them, the editor thanks the following: JONATHAN CAPE & HARRISON SMITH-for the selections from Collected Poems by D. H. Lawrence. THE CLARENDON PRESS-for the selections from The Shorter Poems of Robert Bridges and the sonnet from The Growth of Love by Robert Bridges. J. M. DENT & SONS, LTD.-for the selection from The Cherry Minder by Frank Kendon. THE DIAL PRESS: LINCOLN MACVEAGH-for the selections from The Espalier by Sylvia Townsend Warner. DOUBLEDAY, DORAN AND COMPANY, INC.-for the selections from Leda by Aldous Huxley, The Cyder Feast by Sacheverell Sitwell, Beauty and the Pilgrim by Gerald Gould, The Land by V. Sackville-West, and Requiem by Humbert Wolfe. Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., and A. P. Watt and Sons-for the selections from Collected Poems: Inclusive Edition by Rudyard Kipling; for "Boots" and "The Return" from The Five Nations by Rudyard Kipling, copyright 1917; "An Astrologer's Song" from Actions and Reactions, by Rudyard Kipling, copyright 1909; "Sestina of the Tramp-Royal," "The Ladies," "The Last Chantey," and "For to Admire" from The Seven Seas by Rudyard Kipling, copyright 1893, 1905; and "The Land” from A Diversity of Creatures, by Rudyard Kipling, copyright 1917, all of which are reprinted by special permission of the late Rudyard Kipling, Mrs. Kipling, and Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc. DOUBLEDAY, DORAN AND COMPANY and MARTIN SECKER-for the selections from Collected Poems by James Elroy Flecker. DUCKWORTH & Co.-for poems from Bucolic Comedies by Edith Sitwell. E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY-for selections from The Old Huntsman, CounterAttack and Picture Show by Siegfried Sassoon, and Fifty Poems by Lord Dunsany. FABER & FABER, LTD.-for the selections from Collected Poems by Herbert Read. LAURENCE J. GOMME-for the selections from Verses by Hilaire Belloc. HARPER AND BROTHERS-for the selections from Hawthorn and Lavender by W. E. THE HOGARTH PRESS-for the poems from New Signatures by W. H. Auden, and A Time to Dance by C. Day Lewis. HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY-for the selections from Wild Earth by Padraic Colum, Peacock Pie, The Listeners, The Veil, Collected Poems and Collected Poems (1941) by Walter De la Mare, A Shropshire Lad and Last Poems by A. E. Housman, and Poems by Edward Thomas. MITCHELL KENNERLEY-for the selections from Love Poems and Others by D. H. Lawrence. ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.-for the selections from The Collected Poems of William H. Davies: First Series, Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc, The Bad Child's Book of Beasts by Hilaire Belloc, The Waggoner by Edmund Blunden, Fairies and Fusiliers by Robert Graves, Argonaut and Juggernaut by Osbert Sitwell, Bucolic Comedies by Edith Sitwell, Troy Park by Edith Sitwell, and The Sleeping Beauty by Edith Sitwell. JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD, LTD.-for the selections from Poems and Sonnets by Frank Kendon. HORACE LIVERIGHT, INC.-for the selections from Dublin Days by L. A. G. Strong. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY-for the selections from Selected Poems by "E" (George W. Russell), Twenty by Stella Benson, Creatures by Padraic Colum, Fires, Copyright 1912, and Borderlands and Thoroughfares, Copyright 1915, by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, Collected Poems by Thomas Hardy, Poems by Ralph Hodgson, Good Friday and Other Poems, Copyright 1916, and Salt-Water Ballads by John Masefield, the passage (in this volume entitled "Rounding the Horn") from "Dauber" and two poems from The Story of a Round-House, Copyright 1913, and Collected Poems by John Masefield, Saturday Market by Charlotte Mew, A Trophy of Arms, A Mad Lady's Garland, and The Spirit Watches by Ruth Pitter, Collected Poems by James Stephens, Poems by William Butler Yeats, Later Poems, Copyright 1924, The Tower, Copyright 1928, and Collected Poems, Copyright 1932, by William Butler Yeats. MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED for the selections from Collected Poems and Late Lyrics and Earlier by Thomas Hardy. ELKIN MATTHEWs-for the poem from Chambers of Imagery by Gordon Bottomley. JOHN MURRAY-for the selections from Poetical Works by Robert Bridges. NEW DIRECTIONS-for the selections from The World I Breathe by Dylan Thomas and New Directions in Prose and Poetry: 1940. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS-for the selections from The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, reprinted by permission of the Oxford University Press and the poet's family. James B. PINKER-for the selections from Whipperginny and other work of Robert Graves. THE POETRY BOOKSHOP (London)-for the selections from Spring Morning and Autumn Midnight by Frances Cornford, The Farmer's Bride and The Rambling Sailor by Charlotte Mew, Strange Meetings, Children of Love and Real Property by Harold Monro. Also for the poems reprinted, with the authors' permissions, from the volumes of Georgian Poetry. RANDOM HOUSE-for the selections from Poems by W. H. Auden, On This Island by W. H. Auden, Another Time by W. H. Auden, Collected Poems by C. Day Lewis, Poems by Stephen Spender, The Still Center by Stephen Spender, and The Complete Works of J. M. Synge, all of which are reprinted by permission of, and by special arrangement with, Random House, Inc. GRANT RICHARDS-for the selections from The Hundred and One Harlequins by Sacheverell Sitwell. SIEGFRIED SASSOON-for the selections from his Selected Poems, Recreations, and Vigils. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS-for the selections from the Collected Poems of Alice Meynell, Poems by William Ernest Henley, and the works of Robert Louis Stevenson. MARTIN SECKER-for the selections from Collected Poems by James Elroy Flecker, Verses by Viola Meynell, and Days and Nights by Arthur Symons. SIDGWICK AND JACKSON, LTD.-for the selections from The Waggoner by Edmund Blunden, and The Dark Fire by W. J. Turner. FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY-for the selections from Collected Poems by Alfred Noyes and The World's Miser by Theodore Maynard. THE VIKING PRESS-for the selections from Chamber Music by James Joyce, Amores, Look! We Have Come Through!, and New Poems by D. H. Lawrence, Poems by Wilfred Owen, Selected Poems by Siegfried Sassoon, and The Espalier and Time Importuned by Sylvia Townsend Warner. For permission to reprint certain poems from magazines and other periodicals, the editor thanks: THE ENGLISH REVIEW-for a poem by Humbert Wolfe. THE LONDON MERCURY-for a poem by Stephen Spender. The Observer—for poems by Edmund Blunden and W. H. Davies. THE NEW REPUBLIC-for poems by Sylvia Townsend Warner and Anna Wickham. THE NEW STATESMAN-for a poem by Roy Campbell. NEW VERSE-for a poem by W. H. Auden. POETRY: A Magazine of VERSE-for a selection from Ford Madox Ford. THE SATURDAY REVIEW OF LITERATURE-for poems by Siegfried Sassoon, Richard Hughes, Frances Cornford, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Stephen Spender. VICE VERSA-for "Villanelle" by W. H. Auden. VIRGINIA QUARTERLY REVIEW-for a poem by Ruth Pitter. Three of the posthumous poems of Thomas Hardy are reprinted by permission of Mrs. Hardy and Mr. Sidney Cockerell, his executors. The poems of James Elroy Flecker are reprinted by permission of his executors. The poems of Alice Meynell are reprinted with the consent of her husband, Wilfred Meynell. For permission to print certain poems in manuscript and other poems which have not yet appeared in their authors' volumes, the editor especially thanks Siegfried Sassoon, Sylvia Townsend Warner, the late Lascelles Abercrombie, Francis Meynell, Anna Wickham, Richard Church, Frank Kendon, Ruth Pitter, Roy Campbell, C. Day Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender. Finally I must record my indebtedness for many helpful suggestions to Guy S. Greene, Iowa State College; to E. O. James, Mills College; and to Robert Hillyer, and especially for Professor Hillyer's paragraphs on Robert Bridges. For collaborative counsel in the preparation of the manuscript I am indebted to my wife, Esther Antin. |