Near and Far (Blunden)

by Edmund Blunden

For works with similar titles, see Near and Far.

NEAR AND FAR

By the same Author

POETRYThe ShepherdEnglish PoemsRetreat

PROSEThe BonadventureOn the Poems of Henry VaughanLeigh Hunt's "Examiner" Examined(with newly discovered papers by Charles Lamb)Undertones of War

EDITIONSJohn Clare: Poems chiefly from MS. (with Alan Porter)A Song to David, with other Poems by Christopher Smart

NEAR AND FAR

New Poems

EDMUND BLUNDEN

 

LONDON
COBDEN-SANDERSON
MCMXXIX

Made and Printed for R. Cobden-Sanderson Ltd. in Great Britain at the Botolph Printing Wortks, Gate St., Kingsway, W.C.2

 

First Published: September 1929
Second Impression: September 1929

Dedicatedto that honest friendand admired poet,William Force Stead

Prefatory Note

These poems are chiefly the product of the last two years. The Japanese pieces, however, are mainly reprinted from a volume issued by Mr. C. W. Beaumont in 1927 in a limited and decorated edition. For the previous appearance of several items I am indebted to the editors of the Observer, London Mercury, Nation, Fortnightly, English Review, Daily Express, New Statesman, and Saturday Review.

It is not my habit to reply to my critics, who have been generous to me as a versifier for years. But, in respect of the Japanese pieces which I have written—and I hope to write more—I may be allowed a word. They were blamed here and there for their English tone, and their author was described as an incorrigible "Briton." Those, however, who go from England to Japan without succumbing first to Japanesety will find that there is no great gulf between the old experiences and the new. Substitute cherry-blossom for rose, and rice for bread, and Alps for Chilterns—you do not thereby produce a mystical incomprehensibility. That is better (and worse) provided by avoiding Japan and the Japanese and just being "Oriental."

E. B.

Contents

The Geographer's Glory, or, The Globe in 1730		11
JAPANESE GARLAND
The Visitor		19
Ornamentations		21
Far East		22
Eastern Tempest		25
Inland Sea		27
The Quick and the Dead		28
The Inviolate		29
Building the Library, Tokyo University		30
On a Small Dog, thrust out in a Tokyo Street		31
The Author's Last Words to his Students		32
MOODS, CONJECTURES, AND FANCIES
Familiarity		37
Inaccessibility in the Battlefield		39
War's People		41
Dream Encounters		43
Parable		44
A Sunrise in March		46
Fragment		47
Summer Rainstorm		49
The Kiln		50
The Correlation		51
Autumn in the Weald		52
Return		53
The Deeper Friendship		55
The Blind Lead the Blind		57
Report on Experience		58
Epitaph		59
On a Biographical Dictionary		61
A Quartet		62
A Connoisseur		63
Sir William Treloar's Dinner for Crippled Children		65
The Study		66
Values		67