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.
Rushing from Troy like a cloud on the plains the Trojans thundered, Just as a storm comes thundering, thick with the dust of kingdoms, Edged with the devious dance of the lightning, so all Troas Loud with the roar of the chariots, loud with the vaunt and the war-cry, Rushed from Troywards gleaming with spears and rolled on enormous. Joyous as ever Paris led them glancing in armour, Brilliant with gold like a bridegroom, playing with death and the battle Even as apart in his chamber he played with his beautiful Helen, Touching her body rejoiced with a low and lyrical laughter, So he laughed as he smote his foemen. Round him the arrows, Round him the spears of the Argives sang like the voices of maidens Trilling the anthem of bridal bliss, the chant hymeneal; Round him the warriors fell like flowers strewn at a bridal Red with the beauty of blood.
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