Arthur St. John Adcock

Arthur St. John Adcock Poems

Arthur St. John Adcock Biography

an English novelist and poet, remembered for his discovery of the then-unknown poet W. H. Davies. Adcock was a Fleet Street journalist for half a century, and editor of The Bookman. According to A. E. Waite who knew him, Adcock did all the work of the Bookman, nominally under its founder William Robertson Nicoll. His daughter Marion St. John Webb (died 2 May 1930) was also an author.)

The Best Poem Of Arthur St. John Adcock

Indifference

Break Thou my heart, dear Lord, lest I should die:
The world's gross business has so husked and grown
Round it and stricken it with death that I—
Once tounched by sorrows other lives have known—
I cannot even feel the griefs that are my own.

Thus living but as Thy dumb creatures do,
Careless, estranged from tears and inward smart,
This stark indifference, subtly creeping through
Numbs and has cramped my life in every part,
And I shall die, dear Lord, unless Thou break my heart.

Scourge me with dread of what tomorrow brings,
With sharp regret, the soul's restorative;
It is but death that feels no wintry stings
Nor any thrill that sunnier days can give:
Break Thou my heart, then, Lord, that I may live.

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