27 DECEMBER 1946, Page 24

New Poetry

Selected Poems. By Ronald Bottrall. (Editions Poetry. 4s. 6d.) December-Spring Poems. By Jocelyn Brooke. (John Lane. 6s.) The Merry Ghosts. By John Waller. (Editions Poetry. 6s.) Collected Poetical Works. By Donald Cowie. (Tantivy Press. 10s.6d.) The Invisible Sun. By Margaret Willy. (Chaterson. 3s. 6d.) THOSE venturing newly into the field of poetic criticism owe their readers some light on their tastes and prejudices. Let me •therefore briefly label myself as Right Centre rather than Left, preferring by a narrow margin Tennyson to T. S. Eliot and regretfully confessing a deafness in the direction of Dylan Thomas. You have been warned.

Most interesting of the poets here listed is Mr. Ronald Boman ; he has music, magic, something to say : Seven long summers we watched for the rain

Cicuds coming over the horizon as big as a man's hand, But there was a rustle of dry chaff And the clanging of the cymbals of the prophets of Baal.,

There are possibly ears adequately tuned to derive pleasure also from such lines as

Darkness Calls for a sign, let us build a cosmos Of signs, a sanguine cloud of metamorphoses,

which are, alas, more typical. Mr. Jocelyn Brooke's are queer, haunting poems which appeal, over the head of the conscious intellects to a subterranean common ground where private symbols—the water tower, the orchis, the soldier—are recognised as corresponding to something shared. There are echoes of T. S. Eliot in The Scapegoat :

Here I stand, in the half light At the paths' crossing, by the tomb Of the warriors ; waiting for winter, Waiting for the signal hour, the sudden beacons Lighting the woodland.

but one feels no imitation, rather the common ground of myth.

Mr. John Waller's Merry Ghosts can be superficially labelled a book of war poems ; as a recent contributor has said, an unsatisfac- tory label. But this means only that, being personal, they draw on personal experience of Which war has formed a large part. They range from the " simple, sensuous and passionate" (Ras el Bar, Convoy), through the cleverly and rather self-consciously conversa- tional (Brander Squad, In. Beirut) to the thudding flatness of Such a line as He really echoes a remark of Duhamel, not, unfortunately, the only example of an uncertainty of ear sur- prising in a poet both strong and delicate. A previous acquaintance with Mr. Cowie restricted to his laboriously unfunny Indiscretions of an Infant makes for a Wary approach to his Collected Poetical Works ; but these—sonnets in profusion, odes, didactic poems, two poetic dramas—mercifully eschew the One Great Lavatory Joke. Nor, on the other hand, do they yield any private incantations or indeed magic of any kind. The pleasure which they give has little to do with poetry ; they are rhyming and scanning essays, occasionally poignant, sometimes witty, hardly ever musical, always workmanlike, intelligent, sharp-edged, in a good solid tradition. One wishes, hdwever, that Mr. Cowie would winnow out more critically those of his notions and fancies. which are really not worth clothing in metrical form. Miss Margaret Willy offers traditionalism of a very different kind. Hers is a singing voice slight but true, tuned to the old themes ; the seasons, transitory youth and happiness, love, death, wonder at 4 mystery. Old, but not, in her hands, hackneyed ' • she has freshness, simplicity, the gift for seeing infinity in a grain of sand ; and she can evoke the lacrimae ref-um-without self-consciousness or self-pity.

So brim the sense with music, the heart with love and laughter, For louder in the ears tolls still that grave refrain:

"Nox est perpetua unit dormienda When every thrush in April's leaves will sing for you in vain, _ And neither sunlight, flower, nor kiss can woo -you_ back again."

HONOR CROOME.