Krindlesyke

Bell:

They seemed dead-set ... You needn’t jump like that:
I haven’t got the bracelets in my pocket.

Jim:

And who the hell are you? and what do you mean?

Bell:

You’ve seen my face before.

Jim:

Ay—ay ... I’ve seen it:
But I don’t ken your name. You dog my heels:
I’ve seen your face ... I saw it on that night—
That night ... and sink me, but I saw it last
In the bar at Bellingham: your eyes were on me.
Ay, and I’ve seen that phisgog many times:
And it always brought ill-luck.

Bell:

It hasn’t served
Its owner so much better: yet it’s my fortune,
Though I’m no peachy milkmaid. Ay: I fancied
’Twas you they meant.

Jim:

Who meant?

Bell:

How should I know?
You should ken best who’s after you, and what
You’re wanted for? They might be friends of yours,
For all I ken: though I’ve never taken, myself,
To the little boy-blues. But, carties, I’d have fancied
’Twould make your lugs burn—such a gillaber about you.
They talked.

Jim:

Who talked?

Bell:

Your friends.

Jim:

Friends? I’ve no friends.

Bell:

Well: they were none of mine. Last night I slept
’Neath Winter’s Stob ...

Jim:

What’s that to do with me?

Bell:

I slept till midnight, when a clank of chains
Awakened me: and, looking up, I saw
A body on the gibbet ...

Jim:

A body, woman?
No man’s hung there this hundred-year.

Bell:

I saw
A tattered corpse against the hagging moon,
Above me black.

Jim:

You didn’t see the face?

Bell:

I saw its face—before it disappeared,
And left the gibbet bare.

Jim:

You kenned the face?

Bell:

I kenned the face.

Jim:

Whose face? ...

Bell:

Best not to ask.

Jim:

O Christ!

Bell:

But we were talking of your friends:
Quite anxious about you, they seemed.

Jim (limping towards Bell Haggard with lifted arm):

You cadger-quean!
You’ve set them on. I’ll crack you over the cruntle—
You rummel-dusty ... You muckhut ... You windyhash!
I’ll slit your weazen for you: I’ll break your jaw—
I’ll stop your gob, if I’ve to do you in!
You’ll not sleep under Winter’s Stob to-night.

Bell (regarding him, unmoved):

As well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb?

Jim (stopping short):

Hanged?

Bell:

To be hanged by the neck till you are dead.
That bleaches you? But you’ll look whiter yet,
When you lie cold and stiffening, my pretty bleater.

Jim (shrinking back):

You witch ... You witch! You’ve got the evil eye.
Don’t look at me like that ... Come, let me go!

Bell:

A witch? Ay, wise men always carry witch-bane
When they’ve to do with women. Witch, say you?
Eh, lad, but you’ve been walking widdershins:
You’d best turn deazil, crook your thumbs, my callant,
And gather cowgrass, if you’d break the spell,
And send the old witch skiting on her broomstick.
They said that you’d make tracks for Krindlesyke:
And they’d cop you here, for certain—dig you out
Like a badger from his earth. I left them talking.

Jim:

Where, you hell-hag?

Bell:

Ah, where? You’d like to learn?
It’s well to keep a civil tongue with witches,
If you’ve no sliver of rowan in your pocket:
Though it won’t need any witch, my jackadandy,
To clap the clicking jimmies round your wrists.
To think I fashed myself to give you warning:
And this is all the thanks I get! Well, well—
They’ll soon be here. As I came up Bloodysyke ...

Jim:

Up Bloodysyke: and they were following?
I’d best cut over Gallows Rigg. My God,
The hunt’s afoot ... But it may be a trap—
And you ... And you ...

Bell:

Nay: but I’m no ratcatcher.
You’d best turn tail, before the terriers sight you.

(As Jim bolts past her and through the open door)

Rats! Rats! Good dog! ... And now we’re rid of vermin.

Judith:

Oh, Bell, what has he done? What has he done?

Bell:

How should I ken?

Judith:

And yet you said ...

Bell:

I said?
You’ve surely not forgotten Bell Haggard’s tongue,
After the taste you had of it the last time?

Judith:

What did you hear?

Bell:

A drunken blether-breeks
In a bar at Bellingham: and I recognized
Peter’s own brother, too; and guessed ’twas Jim:
And when they gossiped of Krindlesyke ... Oh, I ken
Ladies don’t listen: but not being a lady
Whiles has advantages: and when he left
His crony sprawling, splurging in the gutter,
I followed him, full-pelt, hot on his heel,
Guessing the hanniel was up to little good.
But he got here before me: so I waited
Outside, until I heard him blustering;
And judged it time to choke his cracking-croose.
I couldn’t have that wastrel making mischief
In Michael’s house: I didn’t quit Krindlesyke
That it might be turned into a tinker’s dosshouse,
Hotching with maggots like a reesty gowdy,
For any hammy, halfnabs, and hang-gallows
To stretch his lousy carcase in at ease,
After I’d slutted to keep it respectable
For fifteen-year.

Judith:

But what do you think he’s done—
Not murder?

Bell:

Murder? Nay: it takes a man
To murder.

Judith:

Ay ... But when you spoke of hanging,
He turned like death: and when he threatened you,
I saw blue-murder in his eyes.

Bell:

At most,
’Twould be manslaughter with the likes of him.
I’ve some respect for murderers: they, at least,
Take things into their own hands, and don’t wait
On lucky chances, like the rest of us—
Murderers and suicides ...

Judith:

But Jim?

Bell:

I’d back
Cain against Abel, ay, and hairy Esau
Against that smooth sneak Jacob. Jim? He’s likely
Done in some doxy in a drunken sleep:
’Twould be about his measure.

Judith:

Jim—O Jim!

Bell:

Nay: he’ll not dangle in a hempen noose.

Judith:

And yet you saw his body ...

Bell:

Dead men’s knuckles!
You didn’t swallow that gammon? Why should I
Be sleeping under Winter’s Stob? But Jim—
I doubt if he’d the guts to stick a porker:
You needn’t fear for him. But I must go.

Judith:

Go? You’ll not go without a sup of tea,
After you’ve traiked so far? Michael and Ruth ...

Bell:

Ay, Judith: I just caught a squint of them
Among the cluther outside the circus-tent:
But I was full-tilt on Jim’s track, then: and so,
I couldn’t daunder: or I’d have stopped to have
A closer look: yet I saw that each was carrying
A little image of a Barrasford:

(Looking into the cradle.)

And here’s the reckling image, seemingly—
The sleeping spit of Michael at the age.

Judith:

You never saw such laleeking lads: and they
All fashion after their father.

Bell:

I’m glad I came.
Even if I’d not struck Jim, I’d meant to come,
And have a prowl round the old gaol, and see
How Michael throve: although I hadn’t ettled
To cross the doorstone—just to come and go,
And not a soul the wiser. But it turns out
I was fated to get here in the nick of time:
It seems the old witch drew me here once more
To serve her turn and save the happy home.
I judged you’d lost your hold on me, Eliza:
But, once a ghost has got a grip of you,
It won’t let go its clutch on your life until
It’s dragged you into the grave with it: even then ...
Although my ghost should prove a match for any,
I’d fancy, with a fair field, and no favour.
But ghosts and graves! I’m down-in-the-mouth to-day:
I must have supped off toadstools on a tombstone,
Or happen the droppy weather makes me dyvous:
I never could thole the mooth and muggy mizzle,
Seeping me sodden: I’d liefer it teemed wholewater,
A sousing, drooking downpour, any time.
I’m dowf and blunkit, why, deuce only kens!
It seems as if Eliza had me fey:
And that old witch would be the death of me:
And these white walls ... ’Twould be the queerest start!
But, Michael’s happy?

Judith:

He’s the best of husbands—
The best of fathers: he ...

Bell:

I ken, I ken.
Well ... He’s got what he wanted, anyway.

Judith:

And you?

Bell:

Ay ... I was born to take my luck.
But I must go.

Judith:

You’ll not wait for them?

Bell:

Nay:
I’m dead to them: I’ve bid good-bye to them
Till doomsday: and I’m through with Krindlesyke,
This time, I hope—though you can never tell.
I hadn’t ettled to darken the door again;
Yet here I am: and even now the walls
Seem closing ... It would be the queerest start
If, after all ... But, dod, I’ve got the dismals,
And no mistake! I’m in the dowie dumps—
Maundering and moonging like a spancelled cow:
It’s over dour and dearn for me in this loaning
On a dowly day. Best pull myself together,
And put my best foot foremost before darkening:
And I’ve no mind to meet them in the road.
So long!

(She goes out of the door and makes down the syke.)

Judith:

Good-bye! If you’d only bide a while ...
Come back! You mustn’t go like that ... Bell, Bell!

(She breaks off, as Bell Haggard is already out of hearing, and stands watching her till she is out of sight; then turns, closing the door, and sinks into a chair in an abstracted fashion. She takes up her knitting mechanically, but sits, motionless, brooding by the fire.)

Judith:

To think that Jim—and after all these years ...
And then, to come like that! I wonder what ...
I wish he hadn’t gone without the boots.

(She resumes her knitting, musing in silence, until she is roused by the click of the latch. The door opens, and Bell Haggard stumbles into the room and sinks to the floor in a heap. Her brow is bleeding, and her dress, torn and dishevelled.)

Judith (starting up):

Bell! What has happened, woman? Are you hurt?
Oh, but your brow is bleeding!

Bell:

I’d an inkling
There must be blood somewhere: I seemed to smell it.

Judith:

But what has happened, Bell? Don’t say ’twas Jim!

Bell:

Nay ... nay ... it wasn’t Jim ... I stumbled, Judith:
And, seemingly, I cracked my cruntle a bit—
It’s Jill fell down, and cracked her crown, this journey.
I smelt the blood ... but, it’s not there, the pain ...
It’s in my side ... I must have dunched my side
Against a stone in falling ... I could fancy
A rib or so’s gone smash.

Judith (putting an arm about her and helping her to rise):

Come and lie down,
And I’ll see what ...

Bell:

Nay: but I’ll not lie down:
I’m not that bad ... and, anyhow, I swore
I’d not lie down again at Krindlesyke.
If I lay down, the walls would close on me,
And scrunch the life out ... But I’m havering—
Craitching and craking like a doitered crone.
Lightheaded from the tumble ... mother-wit’s
Jirbled and jumbled ... I came such a flam.
I’m not that bad ... I say, I’ll not lie down ...
Just let me rest a moment by the hearth,
Until ...

(Judith leads her to a chair, fetches a basin of water and some linen, and bathes the wound on Bell’s brow.)

Judith:

I wish ...

Bell:

I’m better here. I’ll soon
Be fit again ... Bell isn’t done for, yet:
She’s a tough customer—she’s always been
A banging, bobberous bletherskite, has Bell—
No fushenless, brashy, mim-mouthed mealy-face,
Fratished and perished in the howl-o’-winter.
No wind has ever blown too etherish,
Too snell to fire her blood: she’s always relished
A gorly, gousty, blusterous day that sets
Her body alow and birselling like a whinfire.
But what a windyhash! My wit’s wool-gathering;
And I’m waffling like a ... But I’d best be stepping,
Before he comes: I’ve far to travel to-night:
And I’m not so young ... And Michael mustn’t find
His tinker-mother, squatted by the hearth,
Nursing a bloody head. But, mind you, Judith:
I stumbled; and I hurt my side in falling:
Whatever they may say, you stick to that:
Swear that I told you that upon my oath—
So help me God, and all—my bible-oath.
I’m better ... already ... I fancy ... and I’ll go
Before ... What was I saying? Well, old hob,
I little ettled I’d look on you again.
The times I’ve polished you, the elbow-grease
I’ve wasted on you: but I never made
You shine like that ... You’re winking red eyes at me:
And well you may, to see ... I little guessed
You’d see me sitting ... I’ve watched many fires
Since last I sat beside this hearth—good fires:
Coal, coke, and peat, but wood-fires in the main.
There’s naught like izles for dancing flames and singing:
Birch kindles best, and has the liveliest flames:
But elm just smoulders—it’s the coffin-wood ...
Coffins? Who muttered coffins? Let’s not talk
Of coffins, Judith ... Shut in a black box!
They couldn’t keep old Ezra in: the lid
Flew off; and old granddaddy sat up, girning ...
They had to screw him down ... And Solomon
Slept with his fathers ... I wonder he could sleep,
After the razzle-dazzle ... Concubines!
’Twould take a pyramid to keep him down!
And me ... That tumble’s cracked the bell ... not stopt
The crazy clapper, seemingly ... But, coffins—
Let’s talk no more of coffins: what have I
To do with coffins? Let us talk of fires:
I’ve always loved a fire: I’d set the world
Alow for my delight, if it would burn.
It’s such a soggy, sodden world to-day,
I’m duberous I could kindle it with an izle:
It might just smoulder with muckle funeral-plumes
Of smoke, like coffin-elder ... And the blaze—
The biggest flare-up ever I set eyes on,
It was a kind of funeral, you might say—
A fiery, flaming, roaring funeral,
A funeral such as I ... but no such luck
For me in this world—likely, in the next!
And anyway, it wouldn’t be much fun,
If I couldn’t watch it, myself ... Ay, Long Nick Salkeld,
And his old woman, Zillah, died together,
The selfsame day, within an hour or so.
’Twas on Spadeadam Waste we’d camped that time ...
And kenning how they loved their caravan,
And how they’d hate to leave it, or be parted
From one another, even by a foot of earth,
We laid them out, together, side by side,
In the van, as they’d slept in it, night after night,
For hard on fifty-year. We took naught out,
And shifted naught: just burnished up the brasses,
Till they twinkled as Zillah’d kept them, while she could ...
And so, with not a coffin-board betwixt them,
At dead of night we fired the caravan ...
The flames leapt up; and roaring to the stars,
As we stood round ... The flames leapt up, and roaring ...
I hear them roaring now ... the flames ... I hear ...
Flames roaring in my head ... I hear ... I hear ...
And flying izles ... falling sparks ... I hear
Flames roaring ... roaring ... roaring ...

(She sways forward, but Judith catches her in her arms.)

Where am I? Judith, is that you?
How did I come here, honey? But, now I mind—
I fell ... He must have hidden in the heather
To trip me up ... He kicked me, as I lay—
The harrygad!

Judith:

Jim!

Bell:

Nay! What am I saying?
I stumbled, Judith: you must stick to that,
Whatever they may say ... I stumbled, Judith.
Think what would happen if they strung Jim up;
Should I ... you can’t hang any man alone ...
Think what would happen should I ... Don’t you see,
We cannot let them string up Michael’s uncle?
Respectable ... it wouldn’t be respectable ...
And I ... I slutted, fifteen ... I’d an inkling
There must be blood, somewhere ... I thought I smelt it ...
And it tastes salt on the lips ... It’s choking me ...
It’s fire and salt and candle-light for me
This time, and Whinny Muir and Brig-o’-Dread ...
I’m done for, Judith ... It’s all up with me ...
It’s been a fine ploy, while it lasted ...

Judith:

Come ...

Bell:

Life with a smack in it: death with a tang ...

Judith:

I’ll help you into bed.

(Bell Haggard gazes about her in a dazed fashion, as Judith raises her and supports her across the floor towards the inner room.)

Bell:

Bed, did you say?
Bed, it’s not bedtime, is it? To bed, to bed,
Says Sleepyhead: tarry awhile, says Slow:
Put on the pot, says Greedygut ... I swore
I’d not lie down ... You cannot dodge your luck:
It had to be ... And I must dree my weird.
When first I came to Krindlesyke, I felt
These walls ... these walls ... They’re closing on me now!
Let’s sup before we go!

(They pass into the other room, but Bell Haggard’s voice still sounds through the open door.)

Bell:

Nay! not that bed—
Eliza’s bed! The old witch lay in wait
For me ... and now she has me! Well, what odds?
Jim called me witch: and the old spaewife and I
Should be the doose bedfellows, after all.
Early to bed and early to rise ... I’ve never
Turned in, while I could wink an eye, before:
I’ve always sat late ... And I’d sit it out
Now ... But I’m dizzy ... And that old witch, Eliza—
I little guessed she’d play this cantrip on me:
But what a jest—Jerusalem, what a jest!
She must be chuckling, thinking how she’s done me:
And I could laugh, if it wasn’t for the pain ...
It doesn’t do to rattle broken ribs—
But I could die of laughing, split my sides,
If they weren’t split already. Yet my clapper
Keeps wagging: and I’m my own passing-bell—
They knew, who named me ... Talking to gain time ...
It’s running out so quick ... And mum’s the word:
I mustn’t rouse her ... She sleeps couthily,
Free of the coil of cumber and trouble ... I never
Looked on a lonelier face ... The flames ... the flames ...
They’re roaring to the stars ... roaring ... roaring ...
The heather’s all turned gold ... and golden showers—
Izles and flying embers and falling stars ...
Great flakes of fire ... They’ve set the world alow ...
It’s all about me ... blood-red in my eyes ...
I’m burning ... What have I to do with worms!
Burning ... burning ... burning ...

(Her voice sinks to a low moaning, which goes on for some time, then stops abruptly. After a while, Judith comes into the living-room, fills a basin of water from a bucket, and carries it into the other room. She returns with Bell’s orange-coloured kerchief, which she throws on the fire, where it burns to a grey wisp. She then takes a nightdress and a white mutch from a drawer in the dresser, and carries them into the other room, where she stays for some time. The baby in the cradle wakens, and begins to whimper till Judith comes out, shutting the door behind her, and takes it in her arms.)

Judith:

Whisht, whisht, my canny hinny, my bonnie boy!
Your wee warm body’s good to cuddle after ...
Whisht, whisht! (Gazing in the fire.)

First, Phœbe—and then, Bell ... Oh, Jim!

Steps are heard on the threshold, and Michael and Ruth enter, carrying their sleeping sons, Nicholas, aged five, and Ralph, aged three. They put down the children on the settle by the hearth, where they sit, dazed and silent, sleepily rubbing their eyes.

Ruth:

Well, I’m not sorry to be home again:
My arms are fairly broken.

Michael:

Ay: they’re heavy.
The hoggerel you lift up turns a sheep
Before you set it down again. Well, Judith,
You’ve had a quiet day of it, I warrant?

Judith (in a low voice):

Michael, your mother’s here.

Michael:

My mother here?

Ruth:

I always fancied she’d turn up again,
In spite of all her raivelling—Michael, you mind,
About the mutch with frills, and all thon havers?
But where we are to put her I can’t think:
There’s not a bed for her.

Judith:

She’s on my bed.

Ruth:

Your bed? But you ...

Judith:

She’s welcome to my bed,
As long as she has need. She’ll not lie long,
Before they lift her.

Michael:

Judith!

Ruth:

She’s not dead?

Judith:

Ay, son: she breathed her last an hour ago.

Ruth:

So, after all, the poor old soul crept back
To Krindlesyke to die.

(Michael Barrasford, without a word, moves towards the inner room in a dazed manner, lifts the latch, and goes in. After a moment’s hesitation, Ruth follows him, closing the door behind her. The boys, who have been sitting staring at the fire, drowsily and unheeding, rouse themselves gradually, stretching and yawning.)

Nicholas:

Grannie, we saw the circus:
And Ralph still says he wants to be a herd,
Like dad: but I can’t bide the silly baas.
When I’m a man I’ll be a circus-rider,
And gallop, gallop! I’m clean daft on horses.

(An owl hoots piercingly without.)

Ralph:

Grannie, what’s that?

Judith:

Only an owl, son.

Nicholas:

Bo!
Fearent of hoolets!

Ralph:

I thought it was a bo-lo.

Nicholas:

Bo-los or horneys or wirrakows can’t scare me:
And I like to hear the jinneyhoolets scritching:
It gives me such a queer, cold, creepy feeling.
I like to feel the shivers in my hair.
When I’m a man I’ll ride the fells by moonlight,
Like the mosstroopers, when the owls are skirling.
They used to gallop on their galloways,
The reivers, dad says ...

(The owl calls again, and is answered by its mate; and then they seem to be flying round and round Krindlesyke, hooting shrilly.)

Ralph:

Oh, there it is again!
Grannie, I’m freckened ...

Judith:

Its an ellerish yelling:
I never heard ...

Ralph:

What’s in the other room?
I want my dad and mammy.

Judith:

You’re overtired.
Come, I’ll undress you, and tuck you into bed:
And you’ll sleep sound, my lamb, as sound and snug
As a yeanling in a maud-neuk.

Nicholas:

I’ll ride! I’ll ride!

EPILOGUE

Ghosts of my fathers, where you keep
On ghostly hills your ghostly sheep,
Should you a moment chance to turn
The pages of this book to learn
What trade your offspring’s taken to,
Because my exiled heart is true
To your Northumbrian fells and you,
Forgive me that my flocks and herds
Are only barren bleating words.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND ESHER

Mr. Gibson’s new work is a tragic drama in blank verse, concerned with three generations of a family of Northumbrian shepherds. The title, ‘Krindlesyke,’ is taken from the name of the lonely cottage on the fells where they live and the incidents of the story pass.

While ‘Krindlesyke’ is not in dialect, it has been flavoured with a sprinkling of local words; but as these are, for the most part, words expressive of emotion, rather than words conveying information, the sense of them should be easily gathered even by the south-country reader.

Some Press Opinions

The Poetry Review.—‘A new book by Mr. Wilfrid Gibson must always arouse interest, for his genius has been displayed in such varied forms that one can only wonder what new development, what new blending of his great qualities may appear.... In “Krindlesyke” he may be said to have astounded us all by achieving the seemingly impossible combination of the diverse qualities he has hitherto displayed separately.... Ezra Barrasford and his sons appear, amidst the wreck they have made, wonderfully convincing characters.... The women are no less convincing—good-hearted, toil-worn Eliza, driven to “nagging” by her husband and sons; Bell Haggard, a truly wonderful study; Judith, who has learned much wisdom from bitter experience. As to the language, it is wonderfully true to country life and character.’

The Daily News.—‘There is much breadth of vision and much of that bitter wisdom that is yet half beauty in this poem.’

Mr. Laurence Binyon in The Observer.—‘“Krindlesyke” is at once the most ambitious and the strongest work that Mr. Wilfrid Gibson has given us. It is a dramatic poem, firmly designed, and carried out with abundant energy and power.’

The Times Literary Supplement.—‘The poet of deep and self-forgetful feeling must, we venture to think, survive when mannered muses are forgotten. Mr. Gibson is such a poet.... It is his distinction to belong to the school of Wordsworth in an age which is generally too clever, hasty, and conscious to wait upon “the still sad music of humanity.” ... “Krindlesyke” is a notable achievement of the sympathetic imagination.’

Prof. C. H. Herford in The Manchester Guardian.—‘Bell’s talk is full of salt and vivacity, a brilliant stream in which city slang reinforces rustic idiom, and both are re-manipulated by inexhaustible native wit. She is the most remarkable creation in a gallery where not a single figure is indistinct or conventional.... Mr. Gibson’s essay—for there is confessedly something experimental about it—must be reckoned, with those of Mr. Abercrombie, to whom “Krindlesyke” is dedicated, among the most remarkable dramatic poems of our time.’

The Aberdeen Journal.—‘“Krindlesyke” is incontestably the best work Mr. Gibson has so far given us. It is amazingly good—vivid, sincere, living, felt in the marrow of his bones and the beat of his heart.... Here are peasants that belong to a world as true and as deeply felt as those of Hardy and Synge. They are provincial only in the sense that Wordsworth’s dalesmen and women are provincial; that is, they are, in the true sense, universal.... No recent work is more worth reading.... Mr. Gibson has fashioned for his peasants the rich, racy, coloured, vigorous speech that is essential to them. No thing of book this.... As peasant talk it rings true; its rich tang is a rare delight.’

Other Works by Wilfrid Gibson

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net

LIVELIHOOD

Dramatic Reveries

The Times. ‘All have the same freedom, vigour, life, tenderness, minute and thoughtful observation, ever-present sense of the interestingness of human beings and their doings and feelings, work and love and play. There is not a dull page in them.’

Katharine Tynan in The Bookman. ‘These “Dramatic Reveries” are compact of imagination.... The poems are so much extraordinarily vivid and compelling short stories that they might be read with zest by a man with no poetry in his soul, although that man would miss the beauty of poetry which lies over the tale.’

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net

WHIN

Poems

The Observer. ‘There are charming things in this little book.... Throughout there is a very cunning use of northern place names that stir the imagination like the sound of the Borderers’ riding. “R. L. S.” would have liked these names and used them as cunningly.’

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net

NEIGHBOURS

Poems

The Westminster Gazette. ‘The workmanship of these heart-breaking little studies is, as we should expect from Mr. Gibson, honest and exact. Their grim view of human destiny, its all-pervading greyness, is presented with appropriate austerity; and this restraint and detachment increase their vividness and force.... The beautiful sonnets in the section called “Home” show that he, too, is capable of delight.’

The Spectator. ‘Mr. Gibson’s skill is most admirable when we consider that it is allied to poetic feeling of the utmost simplicity and depth.’

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