Ancient lights and certain new reflections, being the memories of a young man; . sh poetslive as far as I know—and I have reasons for knowingthe addresses of an infinite number of them—Englishpoets live—they cannot by any stretch of the imagina-tion be said to flourish, unless they have what iscalled private means—they live in Bedford Park,a few in Chelsea and a great many in the Park is a sort of rash of villas crowded notso very close together or so very far out of town;Chelsea has the river to give it air. At any ratethe poets of to-day crowd towards the light. But in those
Ancient lights and certain new reflections, being the memories of a young man; . sh poetslive as far as I know—and I have reasons for knowingthe addresses of an infinite number of them—Englishpoets live—they cannot by any stretch of the imagina-tion be said to flourish, unless they have what iscalled private means—they live in Bedford Park,a few in Chelsea and a great many in the Park is a sort of rash of villas crowded notso very close together or so very far out of town;Chelsea has the river to give it air. At any ratethe poets of to-day crowd towards the light. But in those old days they seemed filled with apassion for gloom. For I cannot imagine anythingmuch more Cimmerian than Bloomsbury and thewest central districts of the capital of here—I am speaking only impressionistically—all the Pre-Raphaelite poets seemed to crowdtogether, full of enthusiasms, pouring forth endlesssongs about the loves of Launcelot and Guinevere,about music and moonlight. You have to thinkof it as a region of soot-blackened brick houses, with 34. THE ALWAYS CIUCLKI) ROUND IILOOMSIUUIY. THE MOTHEIl OF THE [ To fare p. 3, Gloom and the Poets here and there black squares whose grimy treesreach up mto a brownish atmosphere. What thereis not black is brownish. Yet here all these deadpoets seemed to live. Fitzroy Square, of which Ihave written, is such a square; the Rossettis alwayscircled round Bloomsbury. Though D. G. Rossettitravelled as far afield as Chelsea, William Rossettiuntil very latel}^ lived in Euston Square which, tocelebrate a murder, changed its name to EndsleighGardens; and Christina, who for me is the mostsatisfactory of all the poets of the nineteenth century,died in times of fog in Woburn Square. I suppose they sang of Launcelot and Guinevereto take their own minds off their surroundings,having been driven into their surroundings by thecombined desire for cheap rents and respectableaddresses. Some of them wer
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Keywords: ., bookauthorfordfordmadox18731939, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910
