Frederick Victor Branford

Frederick Victor Branford Poems

Frederick Victor Branford Biography

Frederick Victor Branford (1892–1941) was a British poet, known for verse of World War I and the years after. Born Frederick Victor Rubens Branford Powell, the son of Mary Branford, was known as 'Freddie'. Branford was brought up by his aunt, Dorothy and after her separation from Lionel Branford, they lived in Ardgay, Scotland. He was educated at Edinburgh University and Leiden University. Serving as a Captain in the Royal Naval Air Service during World War I, Branford was very badly wounded at the Battle of the Somme, when he was shot down over the Belgian coast and swam ashore to Holland, where he was interned. Most of his poems were written in a long period of recovery from his injuries, which left him totally disabled. He lived on a disability pension for the rest of his life. Branford stopped writing poetry in 1923, disillusioned with the prospects for future peace. He remarried in 1937, his second wife was his cousin Margaret Branford, the playwright daughter of John Branford.)

The Best Poem Of Frederick Victor Branford

Farewell To Mathematics

I laboured on the anvil of my brain
And beat a metal out of pageantry.
Figure and form I carry in my train
To load the scaffolds of Eternity.
Where the masters are
Building star on star;
Where, in solemn ritual,
The great Dead Mathematical
Wait and wait and wait for me.

To the deliberate presence of the Sun
(Bright cynosure of every darkling sign,
Wherein all numbers consummate in One,)
Poised on the bolt of an Un-finite line,
As one whose spirit's state,
Is unafraid but desperate,
Through far unfathomed fears,
Through Time to timeless years,
I soar, through Shade to Shine.

They say that on a night there came to Euler,
As eager-eyed he stared upon a star,
And fought the far infinitude, a toiler
Like to himself and me, for things that are
Buried from the eyes alone
Of men whose sight is made of stone,
And led him out in ecstasy,
Over the dim boundary
By the pale gleam of a scimitar.

Then Euler, mindful of thy lesser need,
Be thou my pilot in this treacherous hour,
That I be less unworth thy greater meed,
O my strong brother in the halls of power;
For here and hence I sail
Alone beyond the pale.
Where square and circle coincide,
And the parallels collide,
And perfect pyramids flower.

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