Forty-Two Poems — A Closer Reading

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Authors: Flecker, James Elroy, 1884-1915 Digital Source: Project Gutenberg Gutenberg Release Year: 2002 First Publication Year: Not confirmed

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

Book Edition: Project Gutenberg digital edition Book Language: en

Edition facts

Words 12,811

Reading time 56 min

Text sections 2

The catalog record for Forty-Two Poems — A Closer Reading provides practical reading context through 12,811 words, 56 min estimated reading time, and 2 detected text sections.

The text analysis averages about 21.7 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,” connecting these edition facts with the source record’s subject description.

Source: Project Gutenberg record #3039

Flecker's poems shift from a poet's address across centuries to vivid scenes of French villages, London streets, and biblical figures, using dramatic monologue and varied forms to explore love, death, faith, and despair.

Editorial Edition Score 4.5/5

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Description quality20 pts
Title & short description10 pts
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Edition quality

File: pg3039

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And thought the grave would cure me, and was glad When the time came to lose what joy I had." Soon all the voices of a hundred dead Shouted in wrath together. Someone said, "I care not, but the girl was sweet to kiss At evening in the meadows." "Hard it is" Another cried, "to hear no hunting horn. Ah me! the horse, the hounds, and the great grey morn When I rode out a-hunting." And one sighed, "I did not see my son before I died." A boy said, "I was strong and swift to run: Now they have tied my feet: what have I done?" A man, "But it was good to arm and fight And storm their cities in the dead of night." An old man said, "I read my books all day, But death has taken all my books away." And one, "The popes and prophets did not well To cheat poor dead men with false hopes of hell. Better the whips of fire that hiss and rend Than painless void proceeding to no end." I smiled to hear them restless, I who sought Peace. For I had not loved, I had not fought, And books are vanities, and manly strength A gathered flower. God grant us peace at length! I heard no more, and turned to leave their town Before the chill came, and the sun went down. Then rose a whisper, and I seemed to know A timorous man, buried long years ago. "On Earth I used to shape the Thing that seems. Master of all men, give me back my dreams. Give me that world that never failed me then, The hills I made and peopled with tall men, The palace that I built and called my home, My cities which could break the pride of Rome, The three queens hidden in the sacred tree, And those white cloudy folk who sang to me. O death, why hast thou covered me so deep? I was thy sister's child, the friend of Sleep."

Then said my heart, Death takes and cannot give. Dark with no dream is hateful: let me live!

THE BALLAD OF CAMDEN TOWN

I walked with Maisie long years back The streets of Camden Town, I splendid in my suit of black, And she divine in brown.

Hers was a proud and noble face, A secret heart, and eyes Like water in a lonely place Beneath unclouded skies.

A bed, a chest, a faded mat, And broken chairs a few, Were all we had to grace our flat In Hazel Avenue.

But I could walk to Hampstead Heath, And crown her head with daisies, And watch the streaming world beneath, And men with other Maisies.

When I was ill and she was pale And empty stood our store, She left the latchkey on its nail, And saw me nevermore.

Perhaps she cast herself away Lest both of us should drown: Perhaps she feared to die, as they Who die in Camden Town.

What came of her? The bitter nights Destroy the rose and lily, And souls are lost among the lights Of painted Piccadilly.

What came of her? The river flows So deep and wide and stilly, And waits to catch the fallen rose And clasp the broken lily.

I dream she dwells in London still And breathes the evening air, And often walk to Primrose Hill, And hope to meet her there.

Once more together we will live, For I will find her yet: I have so little to forgive; So much, I can't forget.

Knowest thou the land where bloom the lemon trees, And darkly gleam the golden oranges? A gentle wind blows down from that blue sky; Calm stands the myrtle and the laurel high. Knowest thou the land? So far and fair! Thou, whom I love, and I will wander there.

Knowest thou the house with all its rooms aglow, And shining hall and columned portico? The marble statues stand and look at me. Alas, poor child, what have they done to thee? Knowest thou the land? So far and fair. My Guardian, thou and I will wander there.

Knowest thou the mountain with its bridge of cloud? The mule plods warily: the white mists crowd. Coiled in their caves the brood of dragons sleep; The torrent hurls the rock from steep to steep. Knowest thou the land? So far and fair. Father, away! Our road is over there!

The song of a man who was dead Ere any had heard of his song, Or had seen this his ultimate song, With the lines of it written in red, And the sound of it steady and strong. When you hear it, you know I am dead.

Continue Reading →

Flecker opens Forty-Two Poems with a direct address to a reader a thousand years hence, establishing a voice that is both intimate and aware of its own mortality. The collection then moves through sharply contrasting settings: the French mill village of Riouperoux, a ghostly town without a market, and the streets of Camden Town. These early poems alternate between lyrical description and dramatic monologue, often giving voice to the dead, the disillusioned, or the outcast. The variety of forms—ballads, sonnets, songs—suggests a poet testing different registers, from the colloquial to the archaic.

Voices from the Grave and the Street

Several poems in the collection adopt the perspective of the dead or the despairing. In “The Town without a Market,” the speaker stands in a graveyard and hears the dead complain: one misses colors, another music, a third the tactile world. The poem builds to a collective shout of frustration, then singles out a voice that remembers a kiss. This technique of letting the dead speak directly recurs in “Felo de se” and “Tenebris Interlucentem.” Elsewhere, living characters voice their grievances: a lover scorned, a beggar without food, a blind man seeking wisdom. Flecker often places these figures in urban settings—London, Hampstead, Camden Town—giving the collection a grounding in specific, often gritty, locales.

Biblical Figures and the Question of Faith

Flecker revisits biblical stories with a skeptical, humanizing eye. In “Joseph and Mary,” the nativity is presented through a stranger’s encounter with three suicidal men; their despair is interrupted by a woman’s call and a chorus of villagers singing of a child’s birth. The poem leaves the blind man still questioning. “Mary Magdalen” stages a dialogue in which the speaker presses the saint to admit she converted not for immortality but “for love of Him.” The poem “I rose from dreamless hours” explicitly rejects “dead faith, dead mystery” in favor of the natural world and friendship. These poems do not affirm belief so much as explore the emotional and psychological motives behind it.

War, Voyage, and the Exotic

Several poems draw on medieval or Eastern imagery. “War Song of the Saracens” uses a driving rhythm and martial vocabulary: “We are they who come faster than fate.” “A Western Voyage” and “The Welsh Sea” turn to maritime settings, while “Oxford Canal” offers a quieter, inland waterway. The collection includes two sonnets set in the imaginary “Bathrolaire” and a ballad about Iskander (Alexander the Great). These pieces contrast with the London poems, suggesting a poet drawn to both the local and the legendary. The exotic settings are often rendered with concrete detail—ropes, snow, a mill, a barren tree—rather than vague orientalism.

Formal Variety and the Poet’s Self-Presentation

Flecker moves between strict forms (sonnets, ballads with refrains) and looser dramatic monologues. The opening poem, “To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence,” is a sonnet-like address that frames the collection as a message across time. Later, “The Ballad of the Londoner” and “The Ballad of Hampstead Heath” use folk-song repetition. “Don Juan in Hell” and “The Sentimentalist” adopt ironic or philosophical tones. Throughout, the poet presents himself as a young, self-aware craftsman: “I was a poet, I was young.” The collection’s structure—moving from the timeless address to specific places and characters, then back to prayer and miracle—gives a sense of deliberate arrangement, even if the excerpts do not reveal the full arc.

Reading Forty-Two Poems in sequence, one notices how Flecker juxtaposes the personal and the historical, the skeptical and the devout. The poems reward attention to their speakers’ situations—who is speaking, from where, and to whom. The collection does not resolve its tensions between faith and doubt, or between the local and the exotic, but holds them in balance. A first-time reader may find it useful to note how each poem establishes its setting and voice before moving to its central conflict or image.

Reading Flecker’s villages and London streets, I’m struck by how much of him lingers in quieter corners, not the loud grief. It makes me think of that other slim volume, The Coming of the Princess, and Other Poems — Reading Companion, where the same tender uncertainty breathes. I sat with it one grey Sunday, and the feeling hasn’t quite left.