These have an art for the praising
Beauty so high.
Sweet, you are praised in a silence,
Sung in a sigh.
Ralph Hodgson
This exquisite poet was born in Northumberland about 1879. One of the most graceful of the younger word-magicians, Ralph Hodgson will retain his freshness as long as there are lovers of such rare and timeless songs as his. It is difficult to think of any anthology of English poetry compiled after 1917 that could omit "Eve," "The Song of Honor," and that memorable snatch of music, "Time, You Old Gypsy Man." One succumbs to the charm of "Eve" at the first reading; for here is the oldest of all legends told with a surprising simplicity and still more surprising freshness. This Eve is neither the conscious sinner nor the Mother of men; she is, in Hodgson's candid lines, any young, English country girl—filling her basket, regarding the world and the serpent itself with a mild and childlike wonder.
Hodgson's verses, full of the love of all natural things, a love that goes out to
"an idle rainbow
No less than laboring seas,"
were originally brought out in small pamphlets, and distributed by Flying Fame.
EVE
Eve, with her basket, was
Deep in the bells and grass,
Wading in bells and grass
Up to her knees.
Picking a dish of sweet
Berries and plums to eat,
Down in the bells and grass
Under the trees.
Mute as a mouse in a
Corner the cobra lay,
Curled round a bough of the
Cinnamon tall....
Now to get even and
Humble proud heaven and
Now was the moment or
Never at all.