Poems

by Ralph Hodgson

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Genres: Poetry

74 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2008

About the author

Ralph Hodgson (9 September 1871 – 3 November 1962), Order of the Rising Sun, was an English poet, very popular in his lifetime on the strength of a small number of anthology pieces, such as The Bull. He was one of the more 'pastoral' of the Georgian poets. In 1954, he was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

Reviews

[Robin Helweg-Larsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a little strange to think of Ralph Hodgson's 'Poems', published in 1917, being virtually contemporaneous with Eliot's 'Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", but there we are. Hodgson is traditional, occasionally longwinded, but often charming and memorable. Poems that I know and love in this collection include:

'Time, You Old Gipsy Man', with its simple, wistful philosophy:
"Time, you old gipsy man,
Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan
Just for one day?
(...)
Last week in Babylon,
Last night in Rome,
Morning, and in the crush
Under Paul's dome;"

'Eve', with its lyrical portrayal of her seduction by Satan:
"Eve, with her basket, was
Deep in the bells and grass,
Wading in bells and grass
Up to her knees,"

'Stupidity Street, with the animal-lover and natural ecologist's outrage:
"I saw with open eyes
Singing birds sweet
Sold in the shops
For the people to eat,
Sold in the shops of
Stupidity Street.

I saw in vision
The worm in the wheat,
And in the shops nothing
For people to eat;
Nothing for sale in
Stupidity Street."

'The Birdcatcher':
"I lurk among the thickets of
The Heart where they are bred,
And catch the twittering beauties as
They fly into my Head."

It's not Eliot. But at his best, Hodgson is charming.