This book stands dedicated to one only of my friends, but there are many others to whom I would willingly dedicate singly and in state, if that did not mean the writing of forty books of verse and dedications—a terrible thing for all concerned.

So that, under the single name and sign of homage and affection, I would desire such readers as come to me to add also:

To my father and mother; F. W. Harvey (also a Gloucestershire lad); Miss Marion Scott, whose criticism has been so useful, and she so kind, in spite of my continued refusal to alter a word of anything; the Vicar of Twigworth; Herbert Howells (and this is not the last time you will hear of him); Mr. Hilaire Belloc, whose “Path to Rome” has been my trench companion, with “The Spirit of Man”; Mr. Wilfred Gibson, author of “Friends,” a great little book; many others also, including Shakespeare and Bach, both friends of mine; and, last but not least, my comrades of two platoons of the-/-[A] Gloucesters, who so often have wondered whether I were crazy or not. Let them draw their own conclusions now, for the writing of this book it was that so distracted me.... This is a long list, and even now does not include old Mrs. Poyner, who was so jolly and long-suffering, nor my boat Dorothy, now idle in the mud; though a poet sang of her full of glory at Framilode.

Even as I write the list becomes fuller, farther extended, yet a soldier must face pain, and so it remains shorter by far than might be.

I fear that those who buy the book (or even borrow), to get information about the Gloucesters will be disappointed. Most of the book is concerned with a person named Myself, and the rest with my county, Gloucester, that whether I die or live stays always with me—being in itself so beautiful, so full of memories; whose people are so good to be friends with, so easy-going and so frank.

Some of the afore-mentioned people I have never had good fortune enough to meet in the flesh, but that was not my fault. I hope they will forgive my using their names without permission. Ah, would they only retaliate in kind! That is, however, not likely, as I never was famous, and a Common Private makes but little show.

All these verses were written in France, and in sound of the guns, save only two or three earlier pieces. This should be reason enough to excuse any roughness in the technique. If more reason is required, people of home, and most of all, people of Gloucester, may well be indulgent to one who thought of them so often, and whose images of beauty in the mind were always of Gloucester, county of Cotswold and Severn, and a plain rich, blossomy, and sweet of airs—as the wise Romans knew, who made their homes in exile by the brown river, watching the further bank for signs of war.

Ivor Gurney.

Spring, 1917.