Complete Poetical Works of Edward Thomas

by Edward Thomas

  I read ‘The road not taken’ to Helen just now and she liked it entirely and agreed with me how naturally symbolical it was. You won’t go and exaggerate what I say about that one phrase.

  This moment a letter from Haines telling me I am free to drop in on him next week as I hope to do. The weather keeps so fine though that each day it seems must be the last — just like last year.

  People are getting pretty black about the war, realising they have not got the Germans beaten yet. It is said however that we are really through the Dardanelles and the price of wheat is falling. It is said to be kept back to prevent rowdyism in the rejoicing.

  Good luck to you at Franconia and all our loves to you six.

  Yours ever

  E. Thomas

  Index of Letters

  To Edward Garnett

  c/o J. W. Haines

  Hillview Road

  Hucclecote

  Glos

  24 June 1915

  My dear Garnett,

  Thank you for writing at once. I got your letter when I arrived here from Malmesbury last night. But I can’t really answer till I have been able to think a little more. I can only say now that at first sight you seem to ask me to try to turn over a new leaf and be someone else. I can’t help dreading people both in anticipation and when I am among them and my only way of holding my own is the instinctive one of turning on what you call coldness and a superior manner. That is why I hesitated about America. I felt sure that unless I could make a friend or two I could do no good. — Nor do I think that any amount of distress could turn me into a lecturer. It would weary you if I tried to explain: I don’t justify. — But these are first thoughts and I am tired rather.

  As to the Civil List, will you ask Hudson? I believe others might speak to Lloyd George. I hate the idea of urging it, but I am urged and I know that somehow or another I must find some sort of safety however low. Anything rather than a continuation of the insecurity of the last three years. Anything (I must add before you say it) rather than make a bold bid. Anything (I suppose) rather than be independent.

  However I think I shall go over to America in a couple of months and see what I can make myself do.

  I shall write again. I stay here till Saturday or Sunday, then go on to Bablake School Coventry and so back home, I should think through Oxford.

  I have had four marvellous fine long days on end through Salisbury Shaftesbury Avebury Wootton Bassett Tetbury and Malmesbury here.

  Yours ever

  Edward Thomas

  I hope I shall see you before you go. Good luck to David.

  Index of Letters

  To his parents

  Steep

  9 July 1915

  Dear Father and Mother,

  I have got on a step in the half decision I came to while I was with you of enlisting. I saw a sergeant of the Artists Rifles at their H.Q. to-day. They are virtually an Officers Training Corps now. If I joined I should be for a week or two in London, and able (I believe) to stay with you. Then I should spend a month or two in Richmond Park in camp and then a similar period of training at H.Q. in France. If I were then considered fit for a commission I should be at liberty to apply for one. But if I got one it would not (on account of my age) be for service, at first at any rate, if at all, in the trenches, but for training men in England. I have practically come to the decision to go up next week and offer myself to the doctor. The alternative is the Sportsman’s Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, but there (I am told) I might find a rowdy set, no better company than the ordinary crowd of privates, whereas the Artists would be largely professional men. Of course there are still some things to consider, but Helen is willing, and I believe my savings and pay would if necessary cover her expenses during as long an absence as two years. She does not want to go to the Ellises and for the present she and the two girls would stay on here. If I am accepted next week I can have several days for putting my things in order.

  I hope this will not seem to you very unreasonable. The conditions being as I say you will have little cause for anxiety unless some unforeseeable changes take place...

  Duckworths offer me £ 10 in advance for the Proverbs. It is something but I have not accepted it yet.

  I am inquiring how if at all my insurance policies will be affected.

  The English Review rejects my poem. Perhaps if I am in khaki they will be more genial. I am not troubled. I never felt easier in my mind except for a fear that the doctor will not pass me.

  Every your loving son

  Edwy

  Index of Letters

  To J. W. Haines

  Steep Petersfield

  15 August 1915

  My dear Haines,

  I don’t know if one has the right to be plain unless one is sure one doesn’t mind others using the right. But I shall be plain and say that reading your poems makes me feel that you do not express yourself in verse. As it seems to me rhyme and metre compel you to paraphrase what you would have said or sometimes not said at all, had you not formed the habit; and after it all, what you individually feel or think remains unexpressed, at most faintly suggested to a sympathetic reader, if I may dare to call myself one on top of this. The subject is endless. You can’t judge yourself. You know your intentions. You know the experiences out of which your poems spring. You can’t separate the poems from those intentions and experiences. I don’t know how many of us can. I don’t pretend to be able to myself, but I do feel sure that I am right in your case, though I may not have put it plainly. I might be plainer at greater length and to no purpose. I can’t expect to convince you. I don’t know why I should want to convince you. In fact, as I hinted at first, I doubt whether I have the right to say what I have said, and I ask to be forgiven if I seem to intrude as a reviewer into private life. For I know how I should feel if I got this letter myself. But I could not lie out and out. It would have been even more unpleasant to beat about the bush and leave you to guess at my meaning than it is to speak like this. I can’t imagine if it would have been more unpleasant to you. I would lie to an idiot. I would beat about the bush to an old fool. There are other categories where I should feel powerless to say what I thought, but I must not attempt to dictate to you how you should treat my plainness.

  Yours ever

  E. Thomas

  Index of Letters

  To Robert Frost

  ‘A’ Company Artists Rifles

  Hare Hall Camp Romford Essex

  6 December 1915

  My dear Robert,

  It seems an age since I wrote and longer since I heard from you. Now it is a wet evening and every one is playing cards and it is easy to begin a letter. We have begun real work again, each of us taking 10 or 12 men out for 5 days on end and trying to teach them the elements of map-reading, field sketching, the use of compass and protractor, and making a map on the ground with and without the compass. We get a fresh set every week of 5 working days. The pay is still 1/ — a day, but one learns a lot, and if I decide to take a commission the experience will have been valuable. Whether I decide depends on how I like this work and how useful I find myself. As I probably told you, everyone advises me to stick at it, at least for some months.

  We don’t take a class on Saturday so I have got off two Friday nights in succession, returning Sunday night. So I had a whole Saturday at Steep the week before last and did some gardening, chopped some wood, lit a fire in my study. Last Friday night I got to Coventry to talk to Hodson about Mervyn. Mervyn is to live there and attend the school for 2 terms. After that Hodson may get a commission in the Artillery. He took a course in the Cambridge Officers Training Corps last Summer vacation.

  We are now hoping to hear that Mervyn’s fare has reached him at East Alstead. If it has he says he will sail in the St. Louis on December 10 and I can’t tell you how we look forward to seeing him. Of course we don’t know yet here what Xmas leave we shall have. But I hope for 3 days. I have never had more than 2 days at home on end since I joined 5 months ago,
and that only twice.

  Yesterday afternoon I saw de la Mare. Did I tell you Garnett had promised to see if he could get me something from the Civil List. (Davies by the way is getting his £50 doubled, they say). Well, Garnett went off to the Italian front with an ambulance party, and I imagine he forgot me. So I put my tongue in my cheek and asked de la Mare if he could put things in motion. Perhaps he will. I am first making sure that Garnett hasn’t done anything.

  Have you seen the 2nd Georgian Anthology? I had a faint chance of getting in. At least Bottomley wanted to show some of my things to Marsh. But they have kept in Monro. The only things I really much like were de la Mare’s and perhaps Davies’. Bottomley may be all right. The new man Ledwidge isn’t any good, is he? Abercrombie of course is a poet. I don’t know. I couldn’t really spend any time on the volume after looking to see if there was anything new in it and except Ledwidge, there wasn’t. But I suppose what I think doesn’t matter at all considering I read less than any man in the hut. I don’t want to read anything. On the other hand as soon as I get really free with nothing close before me to do I incline to write. I have written two things here or rather 3, but one was just (a) rhyming one. — I am always just a little more outside things than most of the others and without being made to feel so at all acutely. They aren’t surprised whether I come in or stay out of a group.

  It won’t be long before Christmas when this reaches you. I hope you are all going to be together and well and glad to be there on Christmas day. We shall be thinking about you. It must somehow fall out that we don’t have to live on letters very long. Give my love to Elinor and all the children.

  Yours ever

  Edward Thomas

  Index of Letters

  1916-1917

  Index of Letters

  To Helen

  Thursday

  Hare Hall

  Gidea Park Romford

  24 February 1916

  Dearest,

  Fancy your thinking those verses had anything to do with you. Fancy your thinking, too, that I should let you see them if they were. They are not to a woman at all. You know precisely all that I know of any woman I have cared a little for. They are as a matter of fact to father. So now, unless you choose to think I am deceiving you (which I don’t think I ever did), you can be at ease again.

  Silly old thing to jump so to conclusions. You might as well have concluded the verses to Mother were for you. As to the other verses about love you know that my usual belief is that I don’t and can’t love and haven’t done for something near 20 years. You know too that you don’t think my nature really compatible with love, being so clear and critical. You know how unlike I am to you, and you know that you love, so how can I? That is if you count love as any one feeling and not something varying infinitely with the variety of people.

  Thank Bronwen for her letter and give her a large kiss.

  We are all fairly deep in snow today. I got one snowball in the ear but luckily only on the flesh of the ear. There was a lot of snowballing. But we were indoors all day conducting an exam, which is very tiring. Tomorrow we don’t know what we shall do. We have done with one lot; it will be a bad day to begin with another.

  Goodbye now. I saw Father and Mother for an hour or so. I tried my tunic on, but I could get no change out of the compass man. I was back here again at 8.30.

  I am all yours

  Edwy

  Index of Letters

  To Lascelles Abercrombie

  ‘D’ Coy Artists Rifles

  15 Hut

  Harehall

  Romford

  2 March

  My dear Abercrombie,

  I can’t tell you how your letter pleased me. It pleased me more than it could have done with any other man’s name at the end. That is a fact. I am all the more pleased because of course I still wonder whether the things can be any good, beginning so late as I did and after such a bad preparation of journalism. You make me almost sure. But in any case I believe I shall go on, and I shall be curious to see the good company I am to keep. I want to be Eastaway because I should be sick of the nice things as well as the nasty things such a lot of reviewers would say if they had my name to go on.

  As to the Anthology it was an impudent afterthought at 11.30 to put some Eastaway in, just to see what happened. Nothing did till you wrote, that I know of.

  I usually enjoy this life a good deal. My job is largely a schoolmaster’s and I have to do some unaccustomed things, such as lecturing, but it is all useful. My wife and the children are all well at home. I am glad to hear yours are, especially to hear your wife is not ill. Will you remember me to her? I wish we were to meet again soon. But my leaves are short and few. At present they are all stopped by a case of measles in the hut.

  Yours sincerely

  Edward Thomas

  Index of Letters

  To Robert Frost

  Hare Hall Camp

  5 March 1916

  My dear Robert,

  No one can have Patience who pursues Glory, so you will have to toss up with Eleanor which vice you shall claim in public.

  Well, I was hoping your silence meant you had something better to do than write letters. When they told me you would contribute to the Annual I thought it likely. Now I am glad to hear it is so, but sorry to have to wait for the Annual before seeing the poems. I don’t know if you got them, but I have sent several from time to time. Your not mentioning them made me think I had missed fire. I have written so many I suppose I am always missing fire.

  I have done nothing like your lecture at Lawrence. As soon as I stand up and look at 30 men I can do nothing but crawl backwards and forwards between the four points I can still remember under the strain. It will mean a long war if I am to improve. You ask if I think it is going to be a long war. I don’t think, but I do expect a lot of unexpected things and am not beginning really to look forward to any change. I hardly go beyond assuming that the war will end.

  We have been through a time of change here lately. In fact we may not be out of it yet. I was not sure if the reconstruction would leave me out and compel me to take a commission. Today it seems most likely we shall go on as we were. Even so, if I have to wait much longer for promotion I shall be inclined to throw this job up. I have been restless lately. Partly the annoyance of my promotion being delayed. Partly the rain and the long hours indoors. Partly my 10 days chill. Then there has been measles in the camp for 6 weeks and now we have it and are isolated and denied our leave this week, which included my birthday when I meant to be at Steep.

  This should only improve what you condemn as my fastidious taste in souls. Yet soul is a word I feel I can’t have used for years and years. Anyhow here I have to like people because they are more my sort than the others, although I realise at certain times they are not my sort at all and will vanish away after the war. What almost completes the illusion is that I can’t help talking to them as if they were friends.

  Partly what made me restless, was the desire to write, without the power. It lasted 5 or 6 weeks, till yesterday I rhymed some.

  Your talking of epic and play rather stirred me. I shall be careful not to indulge in a spring run of lyrics. I had better try again to make other people speak. I suppose I take it easily, especially now when it is partly an indulgence. — I wish you would send some of yours without bargaining.

  Well; the long and short of it seems to be that I am what I am, in spite of my hopes of last July. The only thing is perhaps I didn’t quite know what I was. This less active life you see gives me more time and inclination to ruminate. Also it is Sunday, always a dreary ruminating day if spent in camp. We got a walk, three of us, one a schoolmaster, the other a game-breeder who knows about horses and dogs and ferrets. We heard the first blackbird, walked 8 or 10 miles straight across country (the advantage of our uniform — we go just where we like): ate and drank (stout) by a fire at a big quiet inn — not a man to drink left in the village, and drew a panorama — a landscape for military pur
poses, drawn exactly with the help of a compass and a protractor, which is an amusement I have quite taken to — they say I am a neo-realist at it.

  Abercrombie wrote a nice letter about some of my verses he had seen. Nobody’s compliments would flatter me so much or more.

  I can’t go on with this now because everything is upside down. We don’t know who or where or what we are. We five don’t want to be split up and scattered. On the other hand we may each be made independent and put in charge of a company and so get rapid promotion.

  Goodbye. They are all well at home, and Mervyn at Coventry. I was to have gone home for my birthday last week. Eleanor Farjeon was there. Now I have a chance of going this week end. My presents are waiting for me. But one of the best things I had on the day was your letter — a lucky accident. Give my love to them all and I hope I shall see them before I am still another year older.

  Yours ever

  Edward Thomas

  Index of Letters

  To Robert Frost

  Hare Hall Camp

  16 March 1916

  My dear Robert,

  Your letter of February 29 only reached me yesterday. It referred to some verses I had sent — dismal ones, I gather. Perhaps one was called ‘Rain’, a form of excrescence you hoped it was when you said ‘Work all that off in poetry and I shan’t complain’. Well, I never know. I was glad to know of a letter reaching you. I had begun to fear perhaps my letters didn’t reach you. Lately I was able to write again. But I got home on Saturday and left them there. If I can find the rough draft here I will copy one out.