Walter de la Mare

by

Joyce Hemsley

Series of famous British names:

Walter De La Mare
Famous Poet, Novelist, Critic.
Born in Kent 1873.
Died in Twickenham 1956.
Educated at St.Paul's School,
London. His father James
was Bank of England Official,
his mother Lucy, related to
Poet Robert Browning.

On leaving St. Paul's, Walter
was employed in London at an
international Oil Co., but soon
took up writing on a full-time
basis. He devoted most of his
life to his poetry and novels;
many poems were for children.
The list is endless; in 1921
he wrote prose, Memoirs of a
Midget. Kismet was one of his
famous stories, written under
pseudonym Walter Ramal.

He retired to Taplow with his
wife Constance and family of
four children; in time, son
Richard of Faber & Faber,
published some of Walter's
books.

Walter De La Mare was honoured
during his lifetime - awarded the
CH and the OM. His poems have
always captured my imagination;
I think his style matched that of
Blake Wordsworth and Coleridge.
I have a book at the side of me
right now, "The Golden Treasury"
C.Day Lewis. I have chosen The
"The Listeners", a great poem
written way back in 1912...
I quote just 12 lines of this
26 line poem:

"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head
And he smote upon the door a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no-one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.

and it continues...Walter De La Mare.

Other famous poems: The Ruin. Autumn,
To a Candle, Fare Well, An Epitaph
and so many more. We owe such
gratitude to this Poet, the famous
and the great Walter De a Mare.

NEXT?
Why don't you look at Twilight Tears
by: Daniel Chapa
from: Bayou Vista, TX, US

To visit all of Joyce Hemsley's poems, click HERE

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