Kingcups flare beside the stream,
That not glides now, but runs brawling ;
That wet roses are asteam

In the sun and will be falling,
Say the chestnut sheds his bloom;
Honey from straw hivings oozes ;
There's a nightjar in the coombe;
Venus nightly burns, and chooses
Most to blaze above my room;

That the laggard 'tis that loses.

His philosophy is akin to that of Wordsworth:

First must the spirit cast aside

This world's and next his own poor pride
And learn the universe to scan

More as a flower, less as a man.

Occasionally he almost captures an Elizabethan lightness and limpidity in his lyrics, as in

Our fast-flickering feet shall twinkle,
And our golden anklets tinkle,

While fair arms in aery sleeves

Shiver as the poplar's leaves.

Frequently he shows traces of a careful training in the school of Milton. We should be inclined to place that poet as far the most prominent among those who have influenced Mr Nichols. He has inherited a splendid vision and developed an intense emotional realisation of the meaning of beauty. In his war poems he has sounded depths that no other warpoet has touched. He can be realistic and grim when occasion calls for it: he understands the mind of the soldier completely, and brings a sympathetic humour to the study of the warrior temperament. But it is in his passion for natural scenery that we learn to love him best and see him most clearly:

So when my dying eyes have loved the trees
Till with huge tears turned blind,

When the vague ears for the last time have hearkened To the cool stir of the long evening breeze,

The blackbird's tireless call,

Having drunk deep of earth-scent strong and kind,
Come then, O Death, and let my day be darkened.
I shall have had my all.

K

V

DORA SIGERSON

RS CLEMENT SHORTER was killed by the war.

MR

Summer with her pretty ways now is taking leave of me, Slow the ling'ring roses fall, softly sings the honey-bee, How can I go back again to the horrors of the town, Where the husky voice of war fiercely echoes up and down?

Other women have had to suffer, but most of them came through: Dora Sigerson not only did not come through, but she gave vent to piteous cries of anguish which rise through their pathos to heights of real poetry :

But, God! to dream, to wake, and dream again,
Where screams red war in harvesting dead men.
Ah! dream of home, of love, of joy, all thrilling,
To wake once more to killing, killing, killing.

She was obsessed by the horror of the whole thing: naturally fragile she could not withstand the avalanche of blood she had not the capacity that so many of us had of becoming more and more hardened by the holocaust first there came the inevitable breakdown and illness which she has interpreted for us in unforgettable verse in The Hours of Illness:

How slow creeps time! I hear the midnight chime,
And now late revellers prepare for sleep;

A last gay voice rings in a passing rhyme,
And past my door the anxious footsteps creep.

The little clocks from hidden places call

'Tis one o'clock; downstairs the big clock's bell Tolls deep, and then comes forth the merry chime, Like laughing children calling, "All is well!"

'Tis two o'clock! Why in the lonesome room
This creak and crack, if there be no one here?
Whose feet disturb the loose board of the floor?
Whose secret presence fills the dark with fear?

'Tis three o'clock! O God, when comes sweet rest?
To sleep, to sleep, within this sleeping house,
Where all could wake with less fatigue than I,
Where no one stirs save some adventurous mouse!

'Tis four o'clock! Death stands at my bed-head
In meditation deep, with hidden face,
And I alone-a coward-alone, afraid,
Lest he from his dread brow his shroud displace.

"Tis five o'clock! Within the empty room,
Threading their way, the happy dead appear,
More living than the quick in this still night—
All whom I loved or ever held me dear.

"Tis six o'clock! Death moves from my bed-head, Flings high the shroud from off his hidden face. "O gentle Death! O fair and lovely shade, Lift this sad spirit from its dwelling-place!

The clock at seven! Hear the milkman come.
Loud clangs the gate; the room is chill and dark.
The maid, reluctant rising, frees the door;
A dog runs forth with shrill, offensive bark.

The clock strikes eight! The curtains pulled aside
Let in the light, so cold, so bleak, so grey.
From their dark hiding come familiar things,
And through my window looks another day.

There will be few (how lucky they) who will not at once respond to the feelings herein expressed: the sweet simplicity of it is reminiscent of Cowper in his truest vein. That really is her secret: she had a purity of mind like one of Shakespeare's later heroines : she sings as one would expect Perdita or Miranda to sing had they been gifted with tongues :

If by my tomb some day you careless pass,
A moment grieved by coming on my name,
Ah! kneel awhile upon the tender grass

In some short prayer acquitting me of blame.

If I reached not your pinnacle of right,

Or fell below your standard of desire,
If to my heart alone my hopes were white,
And my soul built its own celestial fire,

Then let your grief, be it a single tear,
Upon your cheek in tender sorrow fall,
Forget where I did fail; keep only dear

The deeds for which you loved me over all.

There are two famous dirges in our language written to be sung over Fidele's tomb, but if Imogen could have phrased it thus, in such a manner would she have sung her swan-song. her swan-song. Christina Rossetti approaches most nearly among the moderns to this spirit and what is the spirit? Simplicity and sincerity perfectly commingled in a haunting musical refrain:

I want to talk to thee of many things
Or sit in silence when the robin sings

His little song, when comes the winter bleak
I want to sit beside thee, cheek by cheek.