Chapter II: Preface

The title of this book was chosen for this reason. Had the volume been called ---- _and Other Poems_ it might have given a false impression that its contents were entirely new. Had it been called _Collected Poems_ the equally false impression might have been given that there was something of finality about it. The title selected seemed best to convey both the fact that it was a collection and that, under Providence, other (and, let us hope, superior) collections will follow it.

The book contains all that I do not wish to destroy of the contents of four volumes of verse. A number of small corrections have been made. There are added, also, a few recent poems not previously published. The earliest of the poems now reprinted is dated 1905, in which year I was twenty-one. Some of the subsequent years, such as 1914 and 1915, contributed nothing to this book: the greater number of the poems were written in 1911-1912 and 1916-1917.

Some of the poems were not written as I should now write them; and many of them reflect transient, though mostly recurrent, moods which I do not necessarily think worthy of esteem.

J. C. S.

_March_ 1918.

CONTENTS

YEAR

Dedication
Preface

1905 In a Chair
A Day

1907 The Roof

1910 Town
Friendship's Garland

1911 A Chant
The Three Hills
At Night
Lines
Florian's Song

1912 Antinomies on a Railway Station
Tree-Tops
Artemis Altera
Epilogue
Dialogue
Starlight
Song
Crepuscular
For Music
The Fugitive
Echoes

1913 The Mind Of Man
A Reasonable Protestation
In the Park
In the Orchard
The Ship
Ode: In a Restaurant
Faith
A Fresh Morning
Interior

1913-14 On a Friend Recently Dead

1916 The March
Prologue: In Darkness
The Lily of Malud

1917 A House
Behind the Lines
Arab Song
The Stronghold
To a Bull-Dog
The Lake
Paradise Lost
Acacia Tree
August Moon
Sonnet
Song
A Generation
Under
Rivers
I Shall make Beauty...
Envoi

IN A CHAIR

The room is full of the peace of night,
The small flames murmur and flicker and sway,
Within me is neither shadow, nor light,
Nor night, nor twilight, nor dawn, nor day.

For the brain strives not to the goal of thought,
And the limbs lie wearied, and all desire
Sleeps for a while, and I am naught
But a pair of eyes that gaze at a fire.

A DAY

I. MORNING

The village fades away
Where I last night came,
Where they housed me and fed me
And never asked my name.

The sun shines bright, my step is light,
I, who have no abode,
Jeer at the stuck, monotonous
Black posts along the road.