29 MARCH 1946, Page 18

New Poems

Poems, 1938-1945. By Robert Graves. (Cassell and Co. 5s.)

OF these three books, Mr. Graves's is incomparably the most interest- ing. At a time when there is a noticeable trend back to sgicter forms and intermittent rhymes any poet can learn from his book. Mr. Graves's Foreword is worth quoting. In it he says: "I write poems for poets, and satires or grotesques for wits. For people in general I write prose, and am content that they should be unaware that I do anything else. To write poems for other than poets is wasteful." The real interest and value of this book are, then, pro- fessional. Awareness of words and what can be done with them ; understanding of syntax and what, within the bounds .of lucidity, can be done with it ; knowledge and skill in the handling,of rhythm and metre--Mr. Graves has them all, and all are easily discernible in the first verse of the first poem in the book, which is called "A Love Story ":

The full moon easterly rising, furious, Against a winter sky ragged with red ; The hedges high in snow, and owls raving— Solemnities not easy to withstand : A shiver wakes the spine.

The unusually heavy stresses which, in this poem, fall always in the second half . of the line make their effect and exemplify the strong rhythmic pattern which distinguishes these poems ; every word is necessary to the effect, and the effect itself is violent- and dramatic. It is actually a much more romantic and imaginative poem than most others in this book, for in most of them we are more concerned with the method than the matter. In these poems. Mr. Graves has extended, -in however small a way, our poetic usage ; for in a poem like " To Sleep " the language is, in Wordsworth's sense, the language of common speech : Now that I love you, as not before, Now you can be and say, as not before: The mind clears and the heart true-mirrors, you Where at my side an early watch you keep And all self-bruising heads loll into sleep.

There are strange poems like " A Withering Herb " in which the language is positively precious (" Held it gross rival to the sovereien moon "), yet the image of the moon as a stemless flower and the expert handling of the falling rhythm haunt me as a poem should. The satires and grotesques are, on the whole, more conventional, but the best of them are expert and witty.

What strikes me about these poems, after- reading so much con- temporary poetry (which sometimes makes one doubt Pope's dictum about fools and poets), is that here is. a poet who is not the slave of his muse. He expresses himself exactly as he intends ; the right word and emphasis are always achieved. Never inspired, in the poetic sense, he has mastery of the material of poetry which is inspiring to anyone who knows or cares anything about poetry, and in particular to his fellow-professionals.

After the compact, economic writing of Graves, where there are no wasted syllables or words, it is perhaps unusually difficult to give a book like The Lamp :rnd the Veil its due. There are so many words in this book ; ideas and images are swamped in them. In The Ballad of the Mari Lwyd, Mr. Watkins had a theme and a- story, and he wrote what I thought at the time, and still think, was a remarkably original and exciting poem. But story, originality and excitement are alike buried in words in the three poems now published. The first, " Yeats in Dublin," is written in a mood of rapt homige, and describes a not very exciting or, one would have

thought, memorable interview with Yeats in the purest Yeatsian pastel shades. The second poem, " Sea-Music for My Sister

Travelling," attempts to do in words what Debussy in La Mer succeeded in doing in music, and there are some- fine passages and wonderfully good--lines. The last poem, "The Broken Sea.

is again too often pastiche Yeats (as in Section 19 which recalls Yeats's " Prayer for My Daughter "). Too many words to say too little ; one has the impression of a contemporary Swinburne.

Mr. Kendon in The Time Piece has written a long, leisurely, descriptive poem roughly following the progress of the seasons. It derives from the long-established school,of domesticated nature poets of which Cowper is the best exponent. It is the poem of a sensitive and observant man who finds his solace and pleasure in country things, but describes them in language so artificial and remote from human usage as to produce this sort of thing :

Wheat from the car ; this is grave food indeed:

Not sweet, not luscious, not for gluttons this. There's dire antiquity in gathering This husky cylinder . . .

Alas, Mr. Kendon's muse only fires on one husky cylinder. The trouble is that when for a moment you think he is going to rise above this level, as in the description of a walk by moonlight, he is too timid to give the full experience. I must confess that I find his version of Nature too pleasant, beneficent and pretty to be