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Book, page 110 / 248 Alone on the shore in the pause of the nighttime I stand and I hear the long wind blow light; I view the constellations quietly, quietly burning; I hear the wave fall in the hush of the night. Long after I am dead, ended this bitter journey, Many another whose heart holds no light Shall your solemn sweetness hush, awe, and comfort, O my companions, Wind, Waters, Stars, and Night. Other Oxford poets from the front are Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Willoughby Weaving, whose two volumes _The Star Fields_ and _The Bubble_ are as original in their way as the work of Mr. Nichols, though inferior in beauty of expression. Mr. Weaving was invalided home in 1915, and his first book has an introduction by Robert Bridges. In _The Bubble_ (1917) there are many poems so deeply meditative that their full force does not reach one until after repeated readings. He has also a particular talent for the last line. TO ---- (Winter 1916) Thou lover of fire, how cold is it in the grave? Would I could bring thee fuel and light thee a fire as of old! Alas! how I think of thee there, shivering out in the cold, Till my own bright fire lacketh the heat which it gave! Oh, would I could see thee again, as in days gone by, Sitting hands over the fire, or poking it to a bright blaze And clearing the cloggy ash from the bars in thy careful ways! Oh, art thou the more cold or here by the fire am I? B. H. Blackwell, the Oxford publisher, seems to have made a good many "finds"; besides producing some of the work of Mr. Nichols and Mr. Weaving--both poets now have American publishers as well--the four volumes _Oxford Verse_, running from 1910 to 1917, contain many excellent things. And in addition to these, there are original adventures in the art of poetry, sometimes merely bizarre, but
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