Maurice Hewlett

Maurice Hewlett Poems

Maurice Hewlett Biography

Maurice Henry Hewlett (1861-1923), was an English historical novelist, poet and essayist. He was born at Weybridge, the eldest son of Henry Gay Hewlett, of Shaw Hall, Addington, Kent. He was educated at the London International College, Spring Grove, Isleworth, and was called to the bar in 1891. He gave up the law after the success of Forest Lovers . From 1896 to 1901 he was Keeper of Lands, Revenues, Records and Enrolments, a government post as adviser on matters of medieval law. Hewlett married Hilda Beatrice Herbert on 3 January 1888 in St. Peter's Church, Vauxhall, where her father was the incumbent vicar. The couple had two children, a daughter, Pia, and a son, Francis, but separated in 1914. He settled at Broad Chalke, Wiltshire. His friends included Evelyn Underhill, and Ezra Pound, whom he met at the Poet's Club in London.)

The Best Poem Of Maurice Hewlett

In The Trenches

As I lay in the trenches
Under the Hunter's Moon,
My mind ran to the lenches
Cut in a Wiltshire down.

I saw their long black shadows,
The beeches in the lane,
The gray church in the meadows
And my white cottage-plain.

Thinks I, the down lies dreaming
Under that hot moon's eye,
Which sees the shells fly screaming
And men and horses die.

And what makes she, I wonder,
Of the horror and the blood,
And what's her luck, to sunder
The evil from the good?

'T was more than I could compass,
For how was I to think
With such infernal rumpus
In such a blasted stink?

But here's a thought to tally
With t'other. That moon sees
A shrouded German valley
With woods and ghostly trees.

And maybe there's a river
As we have got at home
With poplar-trees aquiver
And clots of whirling foam.

And over there some fellow,
A German and a foe,
Whose gills are turning yellow
As sure as mine are so,

Watches that riding glory
Apparel'd in her gold,
And craves to hear the story
Her frozen lips enfold.

And if he sees as clearly
As I do where her shrine
Must fall, he longs as dearly.
With heart as full as mine.

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