THE QUEST

London, England

October 1921 to July 1922

(page 144)

Swift Wings. Songs in Sussex. [By Victor B. Neuburg] Steyning (The Vine Press); pp. xxiii. + 59.

Feminine rimes too much and uncouth words like ‘vair’ and ‘virent’ too frequently make these wings of song heavy to the ear and understanding; but there is poetry not a little in the book. Richard Jefferies is nobly commemorated in the sonnet bearing his name, and, to our thinking, it is true that “he broke his heart Against the eternal rock of ecstasy”; while it is pleasant to find William Collins remembered, though surely his unrimed ‘Ode to Evening’ were itself best praised in unrimed song. In a book of Sussex Songs, and so full of literary names, it is strange to find two unutilized—Rudyard Kipling and Francis Thompson.