FOREWORD

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These poems, by a writer for whom I have literary hopes, belong very clearly to that new and vigorous type of poetry which has sprung from the stress of the last few years and has its root in things done and suffered rather than in things merely imagined.

Until lately our very belief in the saying that the poet is born and not made proved that we had completely accepted poetry as coming only from within, spun, as it were, out of our inner consciousness, and either quite unhelped, or else only partially helped, by active experiences from without. We have always understood, of course, that such an experience as, for instance, the sudden flashing upon us of a magnetic face as a stranger passes in the street might set aglow a train of thought that would quicken and melt into feeling, and the feeling would, in turn, need—and find—expression in poetry.

So far as this we have admitted that outward occurrences in the course of our quickly flying days can become a source of poetical inspiration. But, in spite of the pointing finger of Kipling, most of us clung desperately to the verse that had its sole origin in imaginative emotion until the blaze of war in the world illumined our souls and showed all of us that out of our simplest practical work can be struck sparks of real and great and rare divine fire.

All the poems in this little book are the outcome of things very deeply felt. It is very difficult for me to write of them because where there is pain uttered in them, it has almost always been my pain as well as the author’s. One or two of the sonnets condense the expression of losses that have meant a life’s upheaval. One or two, again, are practically a concrete record of simple human things observed and suffered and of duty strenuously done. Here there is no leisured dreaming, but sheer experience, solid and stored up, like the honey that a bee’s labour has stored.

But this practical quality, while it has so much that makes it rich and valuable, has also the one conspicuous disadvantage that the work is often done under conditions of strain and turmoil that tell against perfection of method. Some of these Verses of a V.A.D. were written in almost breathless intervals of severe and devoted duty. The poem entitled “The German Ward” is especially an example of this. In such circumstances, it is difficult to achieve any literary ornamentation and least of all that particular kind of simpleness which is the highest form of finished art. In the case of several of the poems, both these qualities have been achieved; yet, because of the difficulties, I make an appeal for considerateness and tender sympathy in judging these first shy flowers of the heart and mind of a young girl who has worked unceasingly and self-forgettingly for the good of others since the days of stress began, and who in her personal destiny has suffered as, I hope, very few have suffered.

Marie Connor Leighton.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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