SIR,—May I be allowed to support the renewed demand for
a revision of the National Anthem, which changing circumstances make more pertinent and urgent now than when the natter was debated some years ago apropos of the offer by Lady Jeans, through The Poetry Review, of a substantial prize (which was not awarded) for substitutes for the ghastly last two stanzas. We then warmly commended the already existing alter- native verses. by-Mr. Thomas Thornely, the veteran Cambridge poet, who happily survives in the early nineties, and whose suggestions admirably meet today's most urgent need, not only because of the increasing dis- quiet, almost disgust, at bellicose utterances so out of time with our professed wish to draw nations together and abate animosities, but also from the altered status of the Dominions and their splendid contri- butions to our success in the two world wars which entitled them to
inclusion in the Anthem.—Yours, &c., GALLOWAY KYLE
33 Portman Square, W. r. (Editor, Poetry Review).
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