Laughing I left the Wise Man's door. Has he found such things where a Changeling sits? The home is darkened from roof to floor, The house is naked and ravaged and plundered Where a Changling sits On the hearthstone, warming his shivering fits.
He sits at his ease, for he knows well He can keep his post. He has left me nothing to pay the cost Of snatching my heart from his private Hell.
Yet when all is done and told I am glad the Wise Man in the City Had no pity For me, and for him I had no gold.
Because if I did not remember him, My little child--Ah! What should we have, He and I? Not even a grave With a name of his own by the river's brim. Because if among the poppies gay, On the hill-side, now my eyes are dim, I could not fancy a child at play, And if I should pass by the pool in the quarry And never see him, a darling ghost, Sailing a boat there, I should be sorry-- If in the firelit, lone December I never heard him come scampering post Haste down the stair--if the soul that is lost Came back, and I did not remember.
The objects of the Society, as stated in the Constitution, are to promote (in the words of Matthew Arnold, adopted as a motto), "a clearer, deeper sense of the best in poetry and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it";
To bring together lovers of poetry with a view to extending and developing the intelligent interest in, and proper appreciation of, poetry;
To form Local Centres and Reading Circles and encourage the intelligent reading of verse with due regard to emphasis and rhythm and the poet's meaning, and to study and discuss the art and mission of poetry;
To promote and hold private and public recitals of poetry;
To form sub-societies for the reading and study of the works of individual poets, and to encourage the production of poetic drama.
The ordinary Membership subscription is 7s. 6d., with an entrance fee of 2s. 6d. (The journal of the Society--THE POETRY REVIEW--is supplied to members without further charge.)
The Society is intended to bind poetry readers and lovers together throughout the English-speaking world, forming a desirable freemasonry, with poetry--the first and best of all arts--as the connecting link.
By means of Local Centres membership is made active and effective, members meeting together intimately for the reading and study of poetry and co-operating with Headquarters in the general work of the Society. A member of the Society is a member of the Centre most convenient for him to attend, and a member of any Centre is a member of the Society as a whole and may attend any Centre meetings anywhere on giving notice to the Secretary. This Centre system carries into effect the idea of a poetical freemasonry, a South African member visiting or going to reside in London or South Australia or wherever the Society has a branch being welcomed by and becoming a member of the local group.