Obscure poets

This guy was pretty awesome...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alun_Lewis_(poet)

Sample poems...

Here’s a selection of poems by Lewis for your consideration:
The Flower
Pale passion-cold green flame
Binding in secret leaf the light whose name
Is Daffodil, immaculately born
Virginal mother quickened by the dawn,
Who lies in starswoon underneath the trees
And drags old hairy Pan in wonder to his knees.
--Alun Lewis
______________________
All Day It Has Rained
All day it has rained, and we on the edge of the moors
Have sprawled in our bell-tents, moody and dull as boors,
Groundsheets and blankets spread on the muddy ground
And from the first grey wakening we have found
No refuge from the skirmishing fine rain
And the wind that made the canvas heave and flap
And the taut wet guy-ropes ravel out and snap.
All day the rain has glided, wave and mist and dream,
Drenching the gorse and heather, a gossamer stream
Too light to stir the acorns that suddenly
Snatched from their cups by the wild south-westerly
Pattered against the tent and our upturned dreaming faces.
And we stretched out, unbuttoning our braces,
Smoking a Woodbine, darning dirty socks,
Reading the Sunday papers - I saw a fox
And mentioned it in the note I scribbled home; -
And we talked of girls and dropping bombs on Rome,
And thought of the quiet dead and the loud celebrities
Exhorting us to slaughter, and the herded refugees;
As of ourselves or those whom we
For years have loved, and will again
Tomorrow maybe love; but now it is the rain
Possesses us entirely, the twilight and the rain.
And I can remember nothing dearer or more to my heart
Than the children I watched in the woods on Saturday
Shaking down burning chestnuts for the schoolyard's merry play,
Or the shaggy patient dog who followed me
By Sheet and Steep and up the wooded scree
To the Shoulder o' Mutton where Edward Thomas brooded long
On death and beauty - till a bullet stopped his song.
--Alun Lewis
_________________________
Goodbye
So we must say Goodbye, my darling,
And go, as lovers go, for ever;
Tonight remains, to pack and fix on labels
And make an end of lying down together.
I put a final shilling in the gas,
And watch you slip your dress below your knees
And lie so still I hear your rustling comb
Modulate the autumn in the trees.
And all the countless things I shall remember
Lay mummy-cloths of silence round my head;
I fill the carafe with a drink of water;
You say ‘We paid a guinea for this bed,’
And then, ‘We’ll leave some gas, a little warmth
For the next resident, and these dry flowers,’
And turn your face away, afraid to speak
The big word, that Eternity is ours.
Your kisses close my eyes and yet you stare
As though God struck a child with nameless fears;
Perhaps the water glitters and discloses
Time’s chalice and its limpid useless tears.
Everything we renounce except our selves;
Selfishness is the last of all to go;
Our sighs are exhalations of the earth,
Our footprints leave a track across the snow.
We made the universe to be our home,
Our nostrils took the wind to be our breath,
Our hearts are massive towers of delight,
We stride across the seven seas of death.
Yet when all’s done you’ll keep the emerald
I placed upon your finger in the street;
And I will keep the patches that you sewed
On my old battledress tonight, my sweet.
--Alun Lewis 1942
______________________
Song
(On seeing dead bodies floating off the Cape)
The first month of his absence
I was numb and sick
And where he'd left his promise
Life did not turn or kick.
The seed, the seed of love was sick.
The second month my eyes were sunk
In the darkness of despair,
And my bed was like a grave
And his ghost was lying there.
And my heart was sick with care.
The third month of his going
I thought I heard him say
Our course deflected slightly
On the thirty-second day-
The tempest blew his words away.
--Alun Lewis
___________________
To a Comrade in Arms
Red fool, my laughing comrade,
Hiding your woman's love
And your man's madness,
Patrolling farther than nowhere
To gain what is nearer than here,
Your face will grow grey as Christ's garments
With the dust of ditches and trenches.
So endlessly faring.
Red fool, my laughing comrade,
Hiding your mystic symbols
Of bread broken for eating
And palm-leaves strewn for welcome,
What foe will you make your peace with
This summer that is more cruel
Than the ancient God of the Hebrews?
When bees swarm in your nostrils
And honey drips from the sockets
Of eyes that to-day are frantic
With love that is frustrate,
What vow shall we vow who love you
For the self you did not value?
--Alun Lewis
____________________
Postscript For Gweno
If I should go away,
Beloved, do not say
'He has forgotten me'.
For you abide,
A singing rib within my dreaming side;
You always stay.
And in the mad tormented valley
Where blood and hunger rally
And Death the wild beast is uncaught, untamed,
Our soul withstands the terror
And has its quiet honour
Among the glittering stars your voices named.
--Alun Lewis
_________________
Must
Must
All this aching
Go to making
Dust?
--Alun Lewis
[all poems from Collected Poems: Alun Lewis, Seren; Second Edition (2007)]

[quote-584972-MidnightSonneteer]This guy was pretty awesome...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alun_Lewis_(poet)

Sample poems...

Here’s a selection of poems by Lewis for your consideration:
The Flower
Pale passion-cold green flame
Binding in secret leaf the light whose name
Is Daffodil, immaculately born
Virginal mother quickened by the dawn,
Who lies in starswoon underneath the trees
And drags old hairy Pan in wonder to his knees.
--Alun Lewis
______________________

... great that you have given Alun Lewis his due here on DUP. Great poet. His war poetry is like he knew he was going to die, and there's so much vitality packed into such a small space.

War poets aren't a category I know much about, but Facebook made me aware of him in a post from W.Whitman Books in Middleburgh, NY.

Can't help but to compare to Shelley and Keats, and well worth tracking down a volume of his works.

I'm astonished and in awe of how talented he was at so early an age.

Here's another poet I've been keen on lately, and I just finished reading RHYMES OF EARLY JUNGLE FOLK.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Marcy

https://whartonesherickmuseum.org/product/rhymes-of-early-jungle-folk/

And now I'm really into this guy...

https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/dr-syntax/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Combe

This lady, and A.E. Stallings, are well worth following...

https://english.web.ox.ac.uk/article/thoughts-on-poems-cliche-by-v.-penelope-pelizzon

MidnightSonneteer said:This lady, and A.E. Stallings, are well worth following...

https://english.web.ox.ac.uk/article/thoughts-on-poems-cliche-by-v.-penelope-pelizzon


Thanks for this, Midnight👍. I've subscribed to the newsletter. It should be interesting.📜

ajay said:

Thanks for this, Midnight👍. I've subscribed to the newsletter. It should be interesting.📜



My pleasure!

I've been a fan of A.E. Stallings for awhile now:)