("A. E.") in respect of No. 23, and by Mr.
Laurence Binyon in respect of No. 22--the latter being reprinted in
_The Winnowing Fan_ (Elkin Mathews).
The Association desires also to acknowledge the generosity with which
authors and publishers have waived or reduced customary copyright fees,
in view of the special objects of their organisation. They regret that
considerations of copyright have rendered it impossible to include
poems by T. E. Brown, Thomas Hardy, W. E. Henley, and A. E. Housman.
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POEMS OF TO-DAY
1. ALL THAT'S PAST
Very old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the briar's boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are--
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.
Very old are the brooks;
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone,
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.
Very old are we men;
Our dreams are tales
Told in dim Eden
By Eve's nightingales;
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We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.
_Walter de la Mare._
2. PRE-EXISTEHCE
I laid me down upon the shore
And dreamed a little space;
I heard the great waves break and roar;
The sun was on my face.
My idle hands and fingers brown
Played with the pebbles grey;
The waves came up, the waves went down,
Most thundering and gay.
The pebbles, they were smooth and round
And warm upon my hands,
Like little people I had found
Sitting among the sands.
The grains of sands so shining-small
Soft through my fingers ran;
The sun shone down upon it all,
And so my dream began:
How all of this had been before;
How ages far away
I lay on some forgotten shore
As here I lie to-day.
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The waves came shining up the sands,
As here to-day they shine;
And in my pre-pelasgian hands
The sand was warm and fine.
I have forgotten whence I came,
Or what my home might be,
Or by what strange and savage name
I called that thundering sea.
I only know the sun shone down
As still it shines to-day,
And in my fingers long and brown
The little pebbles lay.
_Frances Cornford._
3. FRAGMENTS
Troy Town is covered up with weeds,
The rabbits and the pi
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