The poems in this volume cover a period of three years, beginning at the New Year of 1920, except for the rhymes “Henry and Mary,” “What did I dream?” and “Mirror, Mirror!” with parts of “An English Wood,” “The Bed Post” and of “Unicorn and the White Doe,” which are bankrupt stock of 1918, the year in which I was writing Country Sentiment. The Pier Glass, a volume which followed Country Sentiment, similarly contains a few pieces continuing the mood of this year, the desire to escape from a painful war neurosis into an Arcadia of amatory fancy, but the prevailing mood of The Pier Glass is aggressive and disciplinary, under the stress of the same neurosis, rather than escapist. Whipperginny for a while continues so, but in most of the later pieces will be found evidences of greater detachment in the poet and the appearance of a new series of problems in religion, psychology and philosophy, no less exacting than their predecessors, but, it may be said, of less emotional intensity. The “Interlude” in the middle of the book was written before the appearance of these less lyrical pieces, but must be read as an apology for the book being now even less homogeneous than before. To those who demand unceasing emotional stress in poetry at whatever cost to the poet—I was one of these myself until recently—I have no apology to offer; but only this proverb from the Chinese, that the petulant protests of all the lords and ladies of the Imperial Court will weigh little with the whale when, recovering from his painful excretory condition, he need no longer supply the Guild of Honourable Perfumers with their accustomed weight of ambergris.

ROBERT GRAVES.

The World’s End,
Islip.

CONTENTS

PAGE
[Whipperginny][1]
[The Bedpost][2]
[A Lover since Childhood][4]
[Song of Contrariety][5]
[The Ridge-Top][6]
[Song in Winter][7]
[Unicorn and the White Doe][8]
[Sullen Moods][11]
[A False Report][13]
[Children of Darkness][14]
[Richard Roe and John Doe][15]
[The Dialecticians][16]
[The Lands of Whipperginny][17]
[“The General Elliott”][18]
[A Fight to the Death][20]
[Old Wives’ Tales][21]
[Christmas Eve][23]
[The Snake and the Bull][24]
[The Red Ribbon Dream][27]
[In Procession][29]
[Henry and Mary][34]
[An English Wood][35]
[Mirror, Mirror!][36]
[What did I dream?][37]
[Interlude: On Preserving a Poetical Formula][38]
[A History of Peace][39]
[The Rock Below][40]
[An Idyll of Old Age][42]
[The Lord Chamberlain tells of a Famous Meeting][44]
[The Sewing Basket][48]
[Against Clock and Compasses][51]
[The Avengers][52]
[On the Poet’s Birth][53]
[The Technique of Perfection][54]
[The Sibyl][56]
[A Crusader][57]
[A New Portrait of Judith of Bethulia][58]
[A Reversal][59]
[The Martyred Decadents: a Sympathetic Satire][60]
[Epigrams]—
[On Christopher Marlowe] [62]
[A Village Conflict][62]
[Dedicatory][62]
[To R. Graves, Senior][63]
[ “A Vehicle, to wit, a Bicycle”][63]
[Motto to a Book of Emblems][63]
[The Bowl and Rim][64]
[A Forced Music][66]
[The Turn of a Page][67]
[The Manifestation in the Temple][68]
[To Any Saint][70]
[A Dewdrop][71]
[A Valentine][72]

WHIPPERGINNY
(“A card game, obsolete.”—Standard Dictionary.)

To cards we have recourse
When Time with cruelty runs,
To courtly Bridge for stress of love,
To Nap for noise of guns.

On fairy earth we tread,
No present problems vex
Where man’s four humours fade to suits,
With red and black for sex.

Where phantom gains accrue
By tricks instead of cash,
Where pasteboard federacies of Powers
In battles-royal clash.