<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">The Remarkable Volume That<br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/> Gave a New Vogue to Poetry</h1><h1 align="" class="head">Soldier Poets:</h1><h1 align="" class="head">Songs of the Fighting Men.</h1><p>Cloth, 2/6 net; Paper, 1/6 net.</p><p>24 Contributors, including <span class="smallcaps">Capt. Julian Grenfell, d.s.o.</span><br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/> (five poems), "<span class="smallcaps">Edward Melbourne," m.c.</span> (three poems),<br xmlns:exist="http://exist.sourceforge.net/NS/exist" xmlns:html="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"/> and <span class="smallcaps">Sergt. J.W. Streets</span> (six poems).</p><p>"A wonderful volume."—Daily Chronicle.</p><p>"A singular proof of spiritual eflSorescence. . . A treasury of remembrance which all must read who would know the soldier's hidden heart."—Morning Post.</p><p>"Will be treasured with delight by all lovers of grace and purity in verse, and with pride that England is represented by such purity."— Yorkshire Post.</p><p>"A little volume to treasure contains poems that will become classics."—Daily Mail.</p><p>"This volume, compiled with admirable taste and discrimination by Mr. Galloway Kyle, is the work of soldiers who are also singers. How sweet their song it needs but a cursory glance through its pages to reveal. The poems are the reflections of various temperaments, but they are all informed by the spirit of a high resolve and a dauntless courage. There is here, too, a certain gaiety of mood which, by some strange paradox, appears to be one of the compensations of a soldier's life. Some of these men are now numbered with the slain, but they have bequeathed to posterity a priceless legacy of song."—New Witness.</p><p>Dr. Hugh Walker, Professor of Literature and Philosophy at St. David's College, Lampeter, in the Welsh Outlook:—</p><p>"Soldier Poets is nearly always distinctly good, and sometimes it comes near to being great poetry. Certainly the spirit that it shows is great; There are not infrequent technical flaws: how could it be otherwise when some, probably many, of the pieces were composed in the trenches? But there is the stark sincerity of purpose, the flawless truth which has been the essence of great art ever since art arose among men. Though sonje of the pieces are faulty, they are all tingling with vitality. They are in touch with reality, yet are nobly free from that realism which thinks a stench more real than a perfume, and the polluted slime vvhere a river rolls to the sea through some great city more real than the infinite ocean beyond.</p><p>"These poems from the land of the sights and smells of death are as wholesome as a new-mown hayfield. And they are so because the realities the soldiers have fixed their eyes upon are the great realities of life and death. 'I have tried to picture some thoughts that pass through a man's brain when he dies,' writes Streets—alas! 'Wounded and missing, July, 1916.' The man who so tries can never do ignobly. The vision Streets sees is a reality more enduring than the stench or the slime. It is Youth thrilling to give for Liberty ' its love, its hope, its radiant morn.'</p><p>"The soldiers always have something particular to say; sometimes, we may be sure, they could not rest until it was said. Let us end with Captain Grenfell's fine picture of the soldier going into battle. This is religio militis—not the least noble variety of religion."</p><p>"To read these poems by men of all ranks in the British Army is to weep. But let not the reader deceive himself by tears. It is easy to weep—and feel safe. Tears will little avail us who profit by the brotherly sacrifice of these splendid youths if our emotions do not react in effort. The soldier poet never dwells on horror for horror's sake. He knows what life is, and he finds in it beauty and love even in the depths of pain. The old style of soldier was inarticulate. Poets as far apart as Tennyson and Kipling tried to sing for him. They sang well, but the poverty of their effort can only be measured by such wonderful soldier verses as these. When the soldier himself sings there is no flamboyance, no mock heroic. He uses a language simple, direct, sweet. . Here is the secret of the soldier's spirit. We who cannot fight may be envoisu to learn this secret, but it means travelling by a hard road. These men have found the realm beyond the physical."—The New East (Tokyo).</p><p>The national spirit would be fortified if every adult and every adolescent were acquainted with this book. Order it now and see that every friend and every school knows about it. A big Public School edition is in preparation.</p><p>ERSKINE Macdonald, LTD., LONDON, W.C. i</p></body></html> · Great War