Poems In Unrhymed Cadence by F S Flint
I –
London, my beautiful,
It is not the sunset
Nor the pale green sky
Shimmering through the curtain
Of the silver birch,
Nor the quietness;
It is not the hopping
Of the little birds
Upon the lawn,
Nor the darkness
Stealing over all things
That moves me.
But as the moon creeps slowly
Over the tree-tops
Among the stars,
I think of her
And the glow her passing
Sheds on men.
London, my beautiful,
I will climb
Into the branches
To the moonlit tree-tops,
That my blood may be cooled
By the wind.
II
Under the lily shadow
And the gold
And the blue and mauve
That the whin and the lilac
Pour down on the water,
The fishes quiver.
Over the green cold leaves
And the rippled silver
And the tarnished copper
Of its neck and beak,
Toward the deep black water
Beneath the arches,
The swan floats slowly.
Into the dark of the arch the swan floats
And the black depth of my sorrow
Bears a white rose of flame.
III
In The Garden
The grass is beneath my head;
And I gaze
At the thronging stars
In the aisles of night.
They fall … they fall. . . .
I am overwhelmed,
And afraid.
Each little leaf of the aspen
Is caressed by the wind,
And each is crying.
And the perfume
Of invisible roses
Deepens the anguish.
Let a strong mesh of roots
Feed the crimson of roses
Upon my heart;
And then fold over the hollow
Where all the pain was.
Flint decries rhyme but the poem/s almost transfixes with the tone of individual words, especially said aloud, combined with the short lines which, following the punctuation, produces another rhythm, cadence he would prefer to use, simultaneously.. An effect that is much stronger than the visible outline of the poem would suggest. His aim would seem to be to remove all emotion from the text to leave just the crystal glitter of the framework. The words may be missing but the emotion is certainly not lacking!
Among others, H.D. was part of the ‘Imagist’ descriptive, Sara Teasdale also wrote in this style but her lines are less ‘stripped down’.
D H Lawrence also, but produced his poetry in even freer line format often as stories but still relying on the natural rhythms/cadence of his voice. Rhyme exists but the ‘voice’ is more important.
I am almost in a compare and contrast mode with the likes of Edward Thomas and Robert Frost too but my real aim is to wave a flag for F S Flint, who left school at 13 and eventually worked his way up from a young, junior clerk in the Civil Service, learnt some 10 languages and Economics to eventually work as a Planning Economist for the Government. Sadly giving up Poetry from 1930 as he felt Economics much more relevant and important. He was widely respected for his journal contributions on poetry and many translations from the French
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