THE LABOUR LEADER

London, England

4 February 1910

(page 3)

VIEWS AND REVIEWS.

A NEW POET.

The Ballad of the Mad Bird and Other Poems. By Edward Storer. (Hampstead: The Priory Press. 1s. net.)

Mr. Storer prefaces his book with a quotation from the verse of that very interesting gentleman, Mr. Aleister Crowley (of Burmah and elsewhere), but his poems are less disappointing than one might expect. Mr. Storer carves his cherry-stone with felicitous skill. Occasionally his hand trembles, and one detects a straining at the frail leash of Metaphor, as in the following stanza:—

Where golden primroses their tents

Had pitched upon the sward,

It marched on these pale hosts of May,

And put them to the sword.

“it,” in this instance, being a bird.

The bowl of night, too, is not easily rendered “supple,” although Mr. Storer would have it so. Nevertheless, we like the verses of this young poet; we shall hear more of him. From his stanzas, “By the Water Wheel,” we select this pastellette:

Like a lotus blossom sighing

On the bosom of the river;

All my spirit turns to flower,

Like a lotus blossom sighing.