Form: a quarterly of the arts (N.S. 1.1921/1922)

accident of seeing the coverless volume in an attic; it
was not theresult of sitting in his armchair and ponder-
ing how he could defend the good name of Chaucer
against further onslaughts by the younger school of
University critics. If he had made a conscious effort of
this kind, the solution that would probably have
occurred to him would have been a far more direct and
simple one, reading a paper at a literary club or writing
a letter of protest to the review which had published.
Mr. Lector’s article.

1T happened otherwise; Mr. Poeta was a child of
impulse, and when the practical joke was over, he
forgot that there ever was such a poet as Chaucer,
and began to struggle with some metaphysical problem
irrelevant to this story. It may be added that these
events occurred at the close of a summer University
Term. When Mr. Lector, shortly after his escape,
decided to make enquiries, he was informed by Mr.
Poeta’s late landlady that the “poor gentleman” had
left the University for good after a nervous breakdown
in his final examination and was now, she believed, in
a private home for mental cases.

A CHILD

HERE is no tree like Janet;

T hough sway ing in the breeze
No tree has boughs like her arms
When she raises them to wave;
Her slender hands are paler
Thancandle-flamesatsunrise;
No fluttering moth at summer dusk
So swift as her grey eyes.

There will be trees as graceful
And gentle, grey-eyed flowers;

In shady woods and hedgerows
Swift dove-like moths will hover,

When with sad voices hurrying winds
Usher her spirit to strange seas.

EDGELL RICKWORD

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