POEMS OLD AND NEW
English countryside runs through the " Memoirs of a
Fox-Hunting Man " (1928).
The Dead.
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915), educated at Rugby and
Cambridge, joined the R.N.V.R. at the outbreak of
war in 1914, served at Antwerp, and died of blood
poisoning from an insect bite at Skyros, on his way to
the Dardanelles. His "Poems" (1911) and "1914
and Other Poems" (1915) express poignantly and
vividly the joys, sorrows, and aspirations of youth.
The Pike.
Edmund Charles Blunden (b. 1896) was Professor of
English Literature at Tokio University (1924-1927).
His poems, informed by a love of the English country-
side, include "The Waggoner" (1920), "The Shep-
herd" (1922), "To Nature" (1923), "Masks of
Time" (1925), and "English Poems" (1928). He
has also written a volume of war reminiscences
"Undertones of War."
P. 152, 1. 21. Bastion : a kind of tower at the angles of a
fortification.
1. 22. Dipper : a diving bird.
1. 23. Elver : a young eel.
P. 153, 1. 6. Spinney : a copse.
1. 10. Vole : the water-rat.
1.2i. Gorgons: three sisters, one of whom, Medusa,
by her fearful appearance, turned to stone everyone
who looked at her.
Portrait of a Boy.
Stephen Vincent Bene*t, born at Bethlehem, Pennsyl-
vania (1898), and a graduate of Yale University-
comes of a family of army officers. "John Brown's
Body " (1928) deals with the American Civil War.
P. 154, 1. 13. (Southern) Cross: a constellation of the
Southern hemisphere.
Mars : one of the planets.
1. 14. Centaur : a constellation.
1. 15. Wattled: with flesh under the throat, like a turkey.
1.21. Syenite : a granular igneous rock.
1. 24. Doubloons: a Spanish gold coin, worth about a
guinea.
Sir Hudibras and his Squire.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680) was a satirical poet of the
Restoration, and his greatest poem, " Hudibras,"