THE DAILY CHRONICLE

London, England

18 February 1914

(page 3)

BOOKS OF THE DAY.

POETS OF CAMBRIDGE.

A BANQUET OF SONG

AND A WORD BY “Q.”

CAMBRIDGE POETS (1900-1913), An Anthology. Cambridge. Heffer. 5s. net.

Although it is often held nowadays that there are far too many people engaged in the writing of poetry—it is a phase, indeed, through which everyone passes at one time or another—Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, the King Edward VII. Professor of English Literature, in his introduction to this anthology of recent Cambridge verse, points out the wisdom of getting as much poetry written as possible in these latter days. Speaking of the false notions which wrap up poetry like a religious mystery, he says: “It is with poets as with bricklayers—if you set a thousand to work you are likelier to discover genius than if you set a dozen.” Cover, that is, the widest possible field and the crop may be correspondingly greater.

Daintiness and Delicacy.

Mrs. Graham, the editor of this small volume, has selected 38 representative poets, from among whom we may single out Mr. Rupert Brooks and Mr. James Elroy Flecker as being already well known. It is lacking in any sort of unity, for it is naturally impossible to find a common tendency among its contributors. That, of course, is as it should be. There is at any rate a reasonably high and consistent standard of achievement, below which none of the writers fall. Much daintiness and delicacy of idea reveals itself in the volume, some imagination and touches of fantastic writing.

Mrs. Cornford’s “Autumn Evening,” for instance, . . .

[ . . . . . . ]

. . . Mr. Allister [sic] Crowley, to whom a large amount of space is devoted, writes of “necromantic hymns,” and magic ceremonies of the “lesser ritual of the pentagram.” Mr. J. C. Squire’s verse seems less successful than his earlier brilliant parodies.

Mrs. Graham is to be congratulated on this anthology, which, as Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch remarks, “proves at any rate that the poetic impulse abides and is strong in the university.”