Ralph Hodgson

Ralph Hodgson Poems

'Come, try your skill, kind gentlemen,
A penny for three tries!'
Some threw and lost, some threw and won
A ten-a-penny prize.
...

'Twould ring the bells of Heaven
The wildest peal for years,
If Parson lost his senses
And people came to theirs,
...

See an old unhappy bull,
Sick in soul and body both,
Slouching in the undergrowth
Of the forest beautiful,
Banished from the herd he led,
...

The world's gone forward to its latest fair
And dropt an old man done with by the way,
To sit alone among the bats and stare
...

I saw with open eyes
Singing birds sweet
Sold in the shops
For people to eat,
...

I climbed a hill as light fell short,
And rooks came home in scramble sort,
And filled the trees and flapped and fought
...

Now one and all, you Roses,
Wake up, you lie too long!
This very morning closes
The Nightingale his song;
...

8.

Eve, with her basket, was
Deep in the bells and grass,
Wading in bells and grass
Up to her knees,
...

9.

"How fared you when you mortal were?
What did you see on my peopled star?"
"Oh well enough," I answered her,
"It went for me where mortals are!
...

Sour fiend, go home and tell the Pit
For once you met your master, -
A man who carried in his soul
Three charms against disaster,
...

Not baser than his own homekeeping kind
Whose journeyman he is -
Blind sons and breastless daughters of the blind
...

The old gilt vane and spire receive
The last beam eastward striking;
The first shy bat to peep at eve
Has found her to his liking.
...

He came and took me by the hand
Up to a red rose tree,
He kept His meaning to Himself
...

The book was dull, its pictures
As leaden as its lore,
But one glad, happy picture
Made up for all and more:
...

The leaves looked in at the window
Of the house across the way,
At a man that had sinned like you and me
And all poor human clay.
...

Reason has moons, but moons not hers,
Lie mirror'd on the sea,
Confounding her astronomers,
But O! delighting me.
...

Time, You Old Gypsy Man
Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan
Just for one day?
...

He begged and shuffled on;
Sometimes he stopped to throw
A bit and benison
To sparrows in the snow,
...

When flighting time is on I go
With clap-net and decoy,
A-fowling after goldfinches
And other birds of joy;
...

It's sixty years ago, the people say:
Two village children, neighbours born and bred,
One morning played beneath a rotten tree
...

Ralph Hodgson Biography

Order of the Rising Sun (Japanese 旭日章),was an English poet, very popular in his lifetime on the strength of a small number of anthology pieces, such as The Bull. He was one of the more 'pastoral' of the Georgian poets. In 1954, he was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He seems to have covered his tracks in relation to much of his life; he was averse to publicity. This has led to claims that he was reticent. Far from that being the case, his friend Walter De La Mare found him an almost exhausting talker; but he made a point of personal privacy. He kept up a copious correspondence with other poets and literary figures, including those he met in his time in Japan such as Takeshi Saito. Ralph Hodgson was a reclusive figure, who disliked publicity about either his work or his private life. As a result, details on his early life are few and far between. From 1890 until 1912, he worked as an artist for various newspapers and magazines. From 1913, his private press, "At the Sign of the Flying Fame," played host to several of his poems as chapbooks and broadsides. These included "The Song of Honour , " and "The Bull, " for which he received the Polignac Prize in 1914. In 1924, he moved to Japan and took a post as English lecturer at Sendai's University. His reputation as a poet rests upon a small number of publications. "The Bull, " " Eve ," " The Bells of Heaven ," and " The Song of Honour ," are regularly included in poetry anthologies.)

The Best Poem Of Ralph Hodgson

The Gypsy Girl

'Come, try your skill, kind gentlemen,
A penny for three tries!'
Some threw and lost, some threw and won
A ten-a-penny prize.

She was a tawny gypsy girl,
A girl of twenty years,
I liked her for the lumps of gold
That jingled from her ears;

I liked the flaring yellow scarf
Bound loose about her throat,
I liked her showy purple gown
And flashy velvet coat.

A man came up, too loose of tongue,
And said no good to her;
She did not blush as Saxons do,
Or turn upon the cur;

She fawned and whined, 'Sweet gentleman,
A penny for three tries!'
- But oh, the den of wild things in
The darkness of her eyes!

Ralph Hodgson Comments

Paula Morgan 10 August 2019

Was wanting to know if this Poem Book is worth anything poems Ralph Hodgson.To my Mother Copyrights 1917 by The Macmillan Company by the Norwood press. Norwood Mass.USA.This Book I have poems by Ralph Hodgson Was copied New York by them in 1924.(It has 25 poems in it, How many copies is out there.or do you know. K Ok

0 1 Reply
Paula Morgan 10 August 2019

Would like to know if the poem Book by Poems Ralph Hodgkin To my mother would be worth anything.?

0 0 Reply
Margaret 19 March 2019

Learnt this poem as a child. Now 86 it is still in my thoughts.

3 0 Reply
June K 22 December 2017

The poem twould ring tha bells of Heaven - makes me cry. Only poetry with great important thoughts can do this. Found this poem in The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny. So beautiful.

4 0 Reply
Bernard Harris 14 November 2017

My first introduction to Mr.Hodgson was in a recently read by me, a work by the late Siegfried Sassoon who considered the lyrical poem The Song of Honour Ngnificent work

1 0 Reply

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