Richard Arthur Warren Hughes

“ Graves’ Act, I should be sorry that they should be read with no other purpose than indecently to detect my neuroses.
R. H.
North Wales, 1922
[9]
Gipsy-Night
When the feet of the rain tread a dance on the roofs,
And the wind slides through the rocks and the trees,
And Dobbin has stabled his hoofs
In the warm bracken-litter, noisy about his knees;
And when there is no moon, and the sodden clouds slip over;
Whenever there is no moon, and the rain drips cold,
And folk with a shilling of money are bedded in houses,
And pools of water glitter on Farmer’s mould ”

“ I do not wish to oppose this thesis, but only to suggest that though true, it is only a partial truth: and that to make it the sole criterion of poetry would be damning: that as well as being a neurotic animal, Man is a Communicative Animal, and a Pattern-making Animal: that poetry cannot be traced simply to a sort of automatic psycho-therapy, but that these and many other causes are co-responsible. ”

“ Robert Graves’ book On English Poetry. He grounds it upon Man as a Neurotic Animal. Poetry is to the poet, he argues, what dreams are to the ordinary man: a symbolical way, that is, of resolving those complexes which deadlock of emotion has produced. If this book meets with the success it deserves, it is probable that there will be a great deal of psycho-analytical criticism afloat, that the symbolic test will become the sole criterion of distinguishing the true from the fake poem; until some sort of ‘Metamorphic’ school arise, who defeat this by consciously faking their symbolism. ”

“ There never was a more unhappy night,
Not that when Hero’s lamp proved unavailing,
Nor that when Bethlehem was filled with wailing ... [49]
... There is no reason for unhappiness,
Save that the saddened stars have hid their faces,
And that dun clouds usurp their brilliant places,
And that the wind lacks even strength to sigh.
And yet, as if outraged by some long tune
A dog cries dolefully, green-eyed in the moon ...
[50]
The Jumping-Bean
(A curious bean, with a small maggot in it, who comes to life and tumbles his dwelling at the stimulus of warmth) ”

“ Dead, they can see far above them, as if from the depth of a pit,
Black on the glare small figures that twist and are shrivelled in it.
[34]
The Singing Furies
The yellow sky grows vivid as the sun:
The sea glittering, and the hills dun.
The stones quiver. Twenty pounds of lead
Fold upon fold, the air laps my head.
Both eyes scorch: tongue stiff and bitter:
Flies buzz, but no birds twitter:
Slow bullocks stand with stinging feet,
And naked fishes scarcely stir for heat. ”

“ By arrangement with the author, and with the gracious permission of his publishers, The Golden Cockerel Press, Waltham Saint Lawrence, Berkshire, England, this edition of Gipsy-Night and Other Poems becomes the third publication issued by The Private Press of Will Ransom: Maker of Books, 14 West Washington Street, Chicago, U. S. A.
Composition and presswork by Will Ransom, assisted by Edmond A. Hunt; binding by Anthony Faifer. Printing finished September 30th, 1922. ”