Category: Digital Anthology

“Outskirts” by Sacheverell Sitwell

"Outskirts"

The gold voice of the sunset was most clearly in the air

As I wandered through the outskirts of the town.

 

And here disposed upon the grass, I see

Confetti-thick the amorous couples,—

What thoughts, what scenes, evoke, evaporate

In leaden minds like theirs?

Can I create them? These things

Which mean the happiness of multitudes?

A river bank, grass for a dancing floor,

The concertina's wail, and then the darkening day.

 

Raise your eyes from ground to trees

And see them stretch elastically

Tall and taller,—then look along

 

[ . . . ]

 

Sacheverell Sitwell's poem "Outskirts" was published in the 1918 "cycle" of the Wheels anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project

“Discovery” by John Freeman

"Discovery"

Beauty walked over the hills and made them bright.

She in the long fresh grass scattered her rains

Sparkling and glittering like a host of stars,

But not like stars cold, severe, terrible.

Hers was the laughter of the wind that leaped

Arm-full of shadows, flinging them far and wide.

Hers the bright light within the quick green

Of every new leaf on the oldest tree.

It was her swimming made the river run

Shining as the sun;

Her voice, escaped from winter's chill and dark,

Singing in the incessant lark. . . .

All this was hers yet all this had not been

Except 'twas seen.

It was my eyes, Beauty, that made thee bright;

My ears that heard, the blood leaping in my veins,

The vehemence of transfiguring thought

Not lights and shadows, birds, grasses and rains

That made thy wonders wonderful.

For it has been, Beauty, that I have seen thee,

Tedious as a painted cloth at a bad play,

Empty of meaning and so of all delight.

Now thou hast blessed me with a great pure bliss,

Shaking thy rainy light all over the earth,

And I have paid thee with my thankfulness.

 

John Freeman's poem "Discovery" was published in Georgian Poetry, 1916-1917. To read this poem in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

Project Gutenberg (HTML version)

“Mid-Day” by H.D.

"Mid-Day"

The light beats upon me.

I am startled—

A split leaf crackles on the paved floor—

I am anguished—defeated.

 

A slight wind shakes the seed-pods.

My thoughts are spent

As the black seeds.

[ . . . ]

 

H.D.'s poem "Mid-Day" was published in the 1916 Some Imagist Poets anthology. To read the poem in full in this publication context follow the links below:

Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project

Project Gutenberg (text version)

“To a Fumbling Lover” by Jeanne D’Orge

"To a Fumbling Lover"

The sea would know the way to go about it

The moon has taught the tide a thousand

subtle ways of mastery

[ . . . ]

Jeanne D'Orge's poem "To a Fumbling Lover" was published in 1920 in the third Others anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org 

Sonnet “This is no time for prayers or words or song” by Nancy Cunard

Sonnet

This is no time for prayers or words or song.

With folded hands we sit and slowly stare.

The world's old wheels go round, and like a fair

The clowns and peep-shows ever pass along.

[ . . . ]

Nancy Cunard's sonnet "This is no time for prayers or words or song" was published in the first "cycle" of the Wheels anthology in 1916. To read this sonnet in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

Modernist Journals Project

“Sick Leave” by Siegfried Sassoon

"Sick Leave"

When I'm asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,—

They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead.

While the dim charging breakers of the storm

Bellow and drone and rumble overhead,

[ . . . ]

Siegfried Sassoon's poem "Sick Leave" was published in Georgian Poetry 1918-1919. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

“The Unquiet Street” by John Gould Fletcher

"The Unquiet Street"

By day and night this street is not still:

Omnibuses with red tail-lamps,

Taxicabs with shiny eyes,

Rumble, shunning its ugliness.

[ . . . ]

 

John Gould Fletcher's poem "The Unquiet Street" was published in the 1916 Some Imagist Poets anthology. To read this poem in full in this publication context, follow the links below:

Archive.org

The Modernist Journals Project

Project Gutenberg (text version)

“The Great Adventure” by Helen Rootham

"The Great Adventure"

To the memory of E.W.T.

 

One said,—'Death is a great adventure.'

It may be so. Yet being very young

I had not pictured Death as my great quest.

On the long road which lay before me

I did not see this unsuspected turning

Which I am forced to take.

I had imagined many glowing quests,

But at the end of each Life waited,

Crowned me, sent me on,

Life the beautiful, Life the renewer.

I would not have them think I fear,

Or that I grudge this thing they ask of me;

I stood upon the threshold of the world,

I saw the radiance round time un-born,

Felt the faint stirrings of the life in it,

Knew, though I could not understand,

That all I saw and felt belonged to me.

And I was glad.

Then in my hands that trustingly advanced

To take the gifts that Time new-born might offer,

I found a sword.

In my young mind which hardly yet saw clear

To order rules of life,

They wrote the rules of death.

In my young heart which had not yet lived long enough

To know its mate,

They placed an enemy full-grown;

And where I looked for Life

Death stands—The Great Adventure.

 

Helen Rootham's poem "The Great Adventure" was published in the 1916 "cycle" of the Wheels anthology. To read this poem in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

Modernist Journals Project

“In a Garden” by John Rodker

In a Garden

There was a paved alley there,

apple trees and a lush lawn—

and over the grey wall where the plums were

stood the red brick of the chapel.

While over the long white wall

where the green apples grew

and the rusted pears

hung the grey tower of the church;

so high, you couldn't see the top

from that narrow garden.

 

In that narrow garden

on that lush lawn,

we found a ball left from some croquet game.

It had a blue stripe girdling it

and "ah"—I thought,

"it is your soul about me

and we are flung

between our separate desires."

 

[ . . . ]

 

John Rodker's poem "In a Garden" was published in the 1917 Others anthology. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org

HathiTrust.org

“Goldfish” by Harold Monro

"Goldfish"

They are the angels of that watery world,

With so much knowledge that they just aspire

To move themselves on golden fins,

Or fill their paradise with fire

By darting suddenly from end to end.

 

Glowing a thousand centuries behind

In pools half-recollected of the mind,

Their large eyes stare and stare, but do not see

Beyond those curtains of Eternity.

 

When twilight flows into the room

And air becomes like water, you can feel

Their movements growing larger in the gloom,

And you are led

Backward to where they live beyond the dead.

 

But in the morning, when the seven rays

Of London sunlight one by one incline,

They glide to meet them, and their gulping lips

Suck the light in, so they are caught and played

Like salmon on a heavenly fishing line.

 

Ghosts on a twilight floor,

Moving about behind their watery door,

Breathing and yet not breathing day and night,

They give the house some gleam of faint delight.

 

Harold Monro's poem "Goldfish" was published in Georgian Poetry 1918-1919. To read this poem in this publication context, follow the link(s) below:

Archive.org