I do not attach much importance to the publication or non publication of my poetry and never have done. Most of it (the published part) appeared five, ten, fifteen or even thirty or more years after they were written. The few recently published in magazines (not all of them new, e.g. the sonnets) owed their fate to Nolini's eagerness and not to my initiative. But the vast bulk of what I have written (long poems mostly) lies on shelf and in drawer, most of it for more than a decade, awaiting either dissolution or an interminable revision or total recasting which at the present rate may well retain them there a decade or two more. But that is my own idiosyncrasy—it cannot be a rule or example for others.
Wild river in thy cataract far-rumoured and rash rapids to sea hasting, Far now is that birth-place mid abrupt mountains and slow dreaming of lone valleys Where only with blue heavens was rapt converse or green orchards with fruit leaning Stood imaged in thy waves and, content, listened to thy rhapsody's long murmur.
Vast now in a wide press and a dense hurry and mass movement of thronged waters Loud-thundering, fast-galloping, might, speed is the stern message of thy spirit, Proud violence, stark claim and the dire cry of the heart's hunger on God's barriers Self-hurled, and a void lust of unknown distance, and pace reckless and free grandeur.
Calm yet shall release thee; an immense peace and a large streaming of white silence, Broad plains shall be thine, greenness surround thee, and wharved cities and life's labour Long thou wilt befriend, human delight help with the waves' coolness, with ships' furrows Thrill,—last become, self losing, a sea-motion and joy boundless and blue laughter.
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