The Works of Sydney Fowler Wright 1874 - 1965

The County Series of Contemporary Poetry No. VI

Surrey
Edited by S. Fowler Wright, (Editor of Poetry and The Play)

The Empire Poetry League, Abbey House, Westminster, S.W.1.
1926


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).

Abbey House, Westminster. Dec., 1925.

INDEX.

CICELY MARY BARKER.
        Pixies
CATHARINE BLAKISTON
        A Sacrament of Song
        The Ageless Song
        Spring
JOSEPH BRADDOCK.
        The Shield Maidens
E. B. W. CHAPPELOW.
        Eastward Ho!
        In Memoriam Amicitiæ
        The Wayfarer
AIDAN CLARKE.
        A Song of Surrey
OLIVE PRIMROSE
        The High Hills
        The Cuckoo and the Nightingale
        Separation
        Home
        Moonlight
HERBERT EDWARDS.
        Surrey
        Mesopotamia
WILHELMINA FARROW.
        Beauty
KENNETH V. FINCH.
        The Heron
        Autumn
        Longing
S. DYER GOUGH.
        The Shadow of Fear
        Elusive
        The Robin
HELEN HOWGRAVE.
        Introspection
LOOF JOHNSON.
        Surrey
MAUDE EGERTON KING.
        Old Piers Ploughman
        English Earth
HAROLD MARKHAM.
        In the Temple of Trees
        Sunset on Hindhead Common
        The Punchbowl
        Stoatley Lane
        The Pine Trees on Lythe
        A Hindhead Sonnet
        Wakener's Wells
        On a Heath Fire
OLIVER H. MYERS.
        The Butterfly Girl
        The Dream
GEORGE J. N. NORTHCROFT
        After the Shower
LESLIE POCOCK.
        Dreams
        Dumbness
        Cameo
JOHN RUSSELL.
        My Dwelling
        Amavi
        Discontent
HELEN B. G. SUTHERLAND
        To a Road in Hayling Island
MARGARET WYMER.
        Hope
        Autumn Memories
        To a Singer
        The Garden of My Dreams

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