Poems of To-Day

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Various
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Title: Poems of To-Day: an Anthology
Author: Various
Release Date: September 18, 2007 [eBook #22668]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS
OF TO-DAY: AN ANTHOLOGY***
E-text prepared by Al Haines
Transcriber's note:
Page numbers in this book are indicated by numbers enclosed in curly
braces, e.g. {99}. They have been located where page breaks occurred
in the original book.
POEMS OF TO-DAY:
an Anthology.
London:
Published for the English Association
by Sidgwick &
Jackson, Ltd., 1918

First issued in August, 1915;
Reprinted October, 1915; January,
March,
June, September, and December, 1916;
May, July,
September, October, 1917,
January, February, and July, 1918.
{vii}
PREFATORY NOTE
This book has been compiled in order that boys and girls, already
perhaps familiar with the great classics of the English speech, may also
know something of the newer poetry of their own day. Most of the
writers are living, and the rest are still vivid memories among us, while
one of the youngest, almost as these words are written, has gone
singing to lay down his life for his country's cause. Although no
definite chronological limit has been set, and Meredith at least began to
write in the middle of the nineteenth century, the intention has been to
represent mainly those poetic tendencies which have become dominant
as the influence of the accepted Victorian masters has grown weaker,
and from which the poetry of the future, however it may develope,
must in turn take its start. It may be helpful briefly to indicate the
sequence of themes. Man draws his being from the heroic Past and
from the Earth his Mother; and in harmony with these he must shape
his life to what high purposes he may. Therefore this gathering of
poems falls into three groups. {viii} First there are poems of History, of
the romantic tale of the world, of our own special tradition here in
England, and of the inheritance of obligation which that tradition
imposes upon us. Naturally, there are some poems directly inspired by
the present war, but nothing, it is hoped, which may not, in happier
days, bear translation into any European tongue. Then there come
poems of the Earth, of England again and the longing of the exile for
home, of this and that familiar countryside, of woodland and meadow
and garden, of the process of the seasons, of the "open road" and the
"wind on the heath," of the city, its deprivations and its consolations.
Finally there are poems of Life itself, of the moods in which it may be
faced, of religion, of man's excellent virtues, of friendship and
childhood, of passion, grief, and comfort. But there is no arbitrary
isolation of one theme from another; they mingle and inter-penetrate

throughout, to the music of Pan's flute, and of Love's viol, and the
bugle-call of Endeavour, and the passing-bell of Death.
May, 1915.
{ix}
INDEX OF AUTHORS
PAGE A. E. (GEORGE RUSSELL)
Shadows and
Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
ABERCROMBIE, LASCELLES
Margaret's
Song . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
BEECHING, H. C.
Fatherhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Prayers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
BELLOC, HILAIRE
Courtesy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
From "Dedicatory Ode" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 The South
Country . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
BINYON, LAURENCE
Bab-lock-hythe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
73 England . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 For the
Fallen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 In misty
blue .