Şiirler - Poems - Clive Bell

POEMS

CLIVE BELL

PRINTED&PUBLISHED BY LEONARD WOOLF AND VIRGINIA WOOLF

AT THE HOGARTH PRESS, RICHMOND, SURREY.

1921

CONTENTS

PREFACE
_THE_ CARD HOUSE
LETTER TO A LADY I
_TO_ A.V.S. WITH A BOOK
MYSELF TO MYSELF
SPRING
REPLY TO MRS. JOWITT
_TO_ GERALD SHOVE
MARCH
APRIL
JUNE
OCTOBER
DECEMBER
LETTER TO A LADY II
TO LOPOKOVA DANCING
AFTER AS CLEPIADES
THE LAST INFIRMITY
_ΠΑΝΤΩΝ ΓΛΥΚΥΤΑΤΩΝ ΜΕΤΑΒΟΛΗ_

PREFACE

Most or these verses have appeared in the papers—The Nation, NewStatesman, Cambridge Magazine—to the editors of which I tendercustomary dues. Also, in 1917, a dozen were brought together tomake a little book, Ad Familiares, of which a hundred copieswere printed privately. Of these seventy were immediately distributedamongst my friends, while the remaining thirty have drifted intothe hands of curious amateurs who wrote and asked for them. Mystock is now exhausted; but apparently the stock of amateurs is not:for, from time to time, still reach me civil requests for a copy. Whatcan I do? On the one hand, my vanity is outraged by the idea of peopleanxious but unable to read me; on the other, I am too mean to printfor their benefit at my own expense. What I have done is to acceptwith joy an offer by the Hogarth Press to publish a complete editionof my poems—seventeen in number. Thus, in future, without being atpains to write a flattering letter, and at a trifling cost, any amateurcan acquire the works of an extremely rare poet.

C. B.

THE CARD HOUSE

And so he laboured very hard,
Piled little card on little card
And laughed to see how well it stood,
How all his work was sure and good
And pretty as a minaret.
He shone with pleasure. "Now I'll set
A jolly cap to crown the thing."
He clapped his hands. Perhaps the fling,
Perhaps the shout was over-daring;
It toppled down while he was staring.
One had to titter,

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