THE TWO FLOCKS
Where are you going to now, white sheep,
Walking the green hill-side;
To join that whiter flock on top,
And share their pride?
Stay where you are, you silly sheep:
When you arrive up there,
You'll find that whiter flock on top
Clouds in the air!
Yet much of his poetry springs from his wide knowledge and experience of life. An original defence of the solitary existence is seen in Death's Game, although possibly the grapes are sour.
Death can but play one game with me—
If I do live alone;
He cannot strike me a foul blow
Through a belovèd one.
Today he takes my neighbour's wife,
And leaves a little child
To lie upon his breast and cry
Like the Night-wind, so wild.
And every hour its voice is heard—
Tell me where is she gone!
Death cannot play that game with me—
If I do live alone.
The feather-weight pocket-volumes of verse that this poet puts forth, each containing a crop of tiny poems—have an excellent virtue—they are interesting, good companions for a day in the country. There is always sufficient momentum in page 28 to carry you on to page 29—something that cannot be said of all books.
English literature suffered a loss in the death of Edward Thomas, who was killed in France on the ninth of April, 1917. He was born on the third of March, 1878, and had published a long list of literary critiques, biographies, interpretations of nature, and introspective essays. He took many solitary journeys afoot; his books The South Country, The Heart of England, and others, show both observation and reflection. Although English by birth and education, he had in his veins Welsh and Spanish blood.
In 1917 a tiny volume of his poems appeared. These are unlike any other verse of the past or present. They cannot be called great poetry, but they are original, imaginative, whimsical, and reveal a rich personality. Indeed we feel in reading these rimes that the author was greater than anything he wrote or could write. The difficulty in articulation comes apparently from a mind so full that it cannot run freely off the end of a pen.