A Cluster of Grapes A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry — Edition Insights

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Authors: Kyle, Galloway, 1871- [Compiler] Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2007 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

Key Word: English poetry -- 20th century Target Reader: Readers of public-domain and historical texts

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 17,206

Reading time 75 min

Text sections 3

The catalog record for A Cluster of Grapes A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry — Edition Insights provides practical reading context through 17,206 words, 1 hr 15 min estimated reading time, and 3 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 24.4 words per sentence, while the detected sections provide another way to judge how the source is divided.

Project Gutenberg metadata also associates the work with “English poetry -- 20th century,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #21649

This 1914 anthology, compiled by Galloway Kyle, presents twentieth-century poetry selected by the poets themselves. The preface, quoting Sidney, frames the collection as an invitation rather than a manifesto. Poems explore contrasts between rural and urban life, memory and loss, and the tension between natural cycles and human ambition.

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File: pg21649

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Snow was my cradle, and chill winds sang at my birth; Winter is over--and I must make haste to be gone!"

"Soon," says the Swallow, and dips to the wind-ruffled stream, "Grain is all garnered--the Summer is over and done; Bleak to the eastward the icy battalions gleam, Summer is over--and I must make haste to be gone!"

"Soon--ah, too soon!" says the Soul, with a pitiful gaze, "Soon!--for I rose like a star, and for aye would have shone! See the pale shuddering dawn, that must wither my rays, Leaps from the mountains--and I must make haste to be gone!"

At morn I saw the level plain So rich and small beneath my feet, A sapphire sea without a stain, And fields of golden-waving wheat; Lingering I said, "At noon I'll be At peace by that sweet-scented tide. How far, how fair my course shall be, Before I come to the Eventide!"

Where is it fled, that radiant plain? I stumble now in miry ways; Dark clouds drift landward, big with rain, And lonely moors their summits raise. On, on with hurrying feet I range, And left and right in the dumb hillside Grey gorges open, drear and strange, And so I come to the Eventide!

Birds, that cry so loud in the old, green bowery garden, Your song is of _Love! Love! Love!_ Will ye weary not nor cease? For the loveless soul grows sick, the heart that the grey days harden; I know too well that ye love! I would ye should hold your peace.

I too have seen Love rise, like a star; I have marked his setting; I dreamed in my folly and pride that Life without Love were peace. But if Love should await me yet, in the land of sleep and forgetting-- Ah, bird, could you sing me this, I would not your song should cease!

ANNA BUNSTON (Mrs de BARY)

A MORTGAGED INHERITANCE

I knew a land whose streams did wind More winningly than these, Where finer shadows played behind The clean-stemmed beechen trees. The maidens there were deeper eyed, The lads more swift and fair, And angels walked at each one's side-- Would God that I were there!

Here daffodils are dressed in gold, But there they wore the sun, And here the blooms are bought and sold, But there God gave each one. There all roads led to fairyland That here do lead to care, And stars were lamps on Heaven's strand-- Would God, that I were there!

Here worship crawls upon her course That there with larks would cope, And here her voice with doubt is hoarse That there was sweet with hope. O land of Peace! my spirit dies For thy once tasted air, O earliest loss! O latest prize! Would God that I were there!

From Life's enchantments, Desire of place, From lust of getting Turn thou away, and set thy face Toward the wilderness.

The tents of Jacob As valleys spread, As goodly cedars, Or fair lign aloes, white and red, Shall share thy wilderness.

With awful judgments, The law, the rod, With soft allurements And comfortable words, will God Pass o'er the wilderness.

The bitter waters Are healed and sweet, The ample heavens Pour angel's bread about thy feet Throughout the wilderness.

And Carmel's glory Thou thoughtest gone, And Sharon's roses, The excellency of Lebanon Delight thy wilderness.

Who passeth Jordan Perfumed with myrrh, With myrrh and incense? Lo! on his arm Love leadeth her Who trod the wilderness.

UNDER A WILTSHIRE APPLE TREE

Some folks as can afford, So I've heard say, Sets up a sort of cross Right in the garden way To mind 'em of the Lord.

But I, when I do see Thic apple tree An' stoopin' limb All spread wi' moss, I think of Him And how he talks wi' me.

I think of God And how he trod That garden long ago: He walked, I reckon, to and fro And then sat down Upon the groun' Or some low limb What suited Him Same as you see On many a tree, And on this very one Where I at set o' sun Do sit and talk wi' He.

An' mornings, too, I rise an' come An' sit down where the branch be low; A bird do sing, a bee do hum, The flowers in the border blow, An' all my heart's so glad an' clear As pools be when the sun do peer: As pools a laughin' in the light When mornin' air is swep' an' bright, As pools what got all Heaven in sight So's my heart's cheer When He be near.

Continue Reading →

Galloway Kyle's 1914 anthology A Cluster of Grapes opens with a preface that borrows Sir Philip Sidney's metaphor of a vineyard: the compiler offers a taste meant to entice readers further into poetry. Kyle explicitly avoids classifying poets by schools or proving that good poetry exists in the twentieth century. Instead, he lets each poet choose their own contribution, making the volume a self-selected sampler rather than a critic's verdict.

The excerpts reveal recurring tensions: between the pastoral and the urban, between childhood innocence and adult regret, and between natural growth and human imposition. Poems like 'Captive in London Town' imagine plants straining beneath city stones, while 'The Settlers' contrasts peaceful agricultural death with the violent sowing of dragon's teeth from myth. These patterns suggest a collection preoccupied with how the present century inherits and transforms older landscapes and stories.

A Compiler's Restraint

Kyle's preface is notable for what it refuses to do. He writes that the anthology is 'not intended to show that any poet, deliberately or otherwise, is a Neo-Symbolist or Paroxyst or is afflicted with any other 'ist or 'ism.' This explicit rejection of labeling stands out in a period when poetic movements were often fiercely debated. He also declines to argue that good poetry is being written at all, calling such purposes 'superfluous' and leaving them to 'dogmatic disputants.'

The compiler's modesty extends to the selection process: the poems were chosen by the writers themselves, not by Kyle. He thanks them for their 'cordial co-operation' and frames the book as opening a 'fair prospect' for readers. This approach makes the anthology less a curated argument and more a gathering of voices, each responsible for its own presence.

Rural Memory and Urban Pressure

Several poems in the excerpts dwell on the contrast between remembered countryside and the constraints of the city. In 'The Old Playground,' the speaker recalls fields where children watched a thrush 'dashing with zest a snail against a stone,' but now dares not return, fearing a ghostly lad who asks, 'Where are those dreams I left in charge with you?' The loss is personal and specific, tied to a particular place and a particular question.

'Captive in London Town' personifies plants—'mint, mallow, dock, brambles in bondage sore'—that wait beneath pavement, 'like Samson, blind and scorned,' to 'tumble down its pride.' The poem imagines a slow, subterranean rebellion of nature against human construction. Both poems use concrete images—a thrush, a snail, roots, stones—to ground their larger meditations on time and displacement.

Settling and Sowing: Death as Seed

'The Settlers' by Laurence Housman offers a stark view of colonial agriculture: 'Hard to the plough their hands they put, / And wheresoe'er the soil had need / The furrow drave, and underfoot / They sowed themselves for seed.' The settlers become part of the land they work, their bodies buried beneath 'cloaks of grass.' The poem contrasts this with the myth of Cadmus sowing dragon's teeth, which produced armed men and 'death ran multiplied.' Here, the settlers' death yields not war but 'the coming race.'

The same poem ends with a paradox: 'Out of the lives ye cast away / The coming race is born.' This echoes the anthology's own logic of selection—poems chosen by their authors, each a seed of the century's voice. The tension between peaceful sowing and violent myth, between individual loss and collective future, runs through the collection without resolution.

Readers approaching A Cluster of Grapes should note that the excerpts represent only a fraction of the full anthology. The poems included here share a concern with boundaries—between life and death, country and city, past and present—but the collection likely contains other voices and themes. Kyle's preface promises no system, only a taste. The best approach is to read sequentially, letting each poet's self-chosen work build its own context, and to notice how the century's first decade shaped these varied responses to change and continuity.

I was thinking of my grandfather’s hayfield, how the poems in this anthology hold that same golden, fading light. Then I remembered a quiet evening with The ride to the lady, and other poems — Reading Companion, and how its gentle cadence felt like walking the same worn path home. Both books keep a certain hush inside them.