Ivor Gurney - Gurney Photo Album

Go to Site Index for Ivor Gurney, Poet Composer

Gurney Photo Album

A Selection: Gurney's World

Gurney: 1905 – War-1915 – High Wycombe in 1919– 1920 Stormy & Pensive – 1922 –
Asylum - Reads & Reflects – Twigworth – Grave
Severn River & Valley –Wainlode Hill –A Meadow –A Pond –Gloucester Cathedral
Severn & Cathedral – 1900s Eastgate Street – Eastgate in 1920s – Father’s Shop –His Parents& Siblings
Cheesman–Drummond–Finzi–Harvey–Howells–Scott
Gloucestershire Landmarks on Greeting Cards

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If England, her spirit lives anywhere
It is by Severn, by hawthorns and grand willows...

Everyman Ivor Gurney, 52.

The Severn River with May Hill on the right horizon.[Blevins] INDEX

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Severn Valley with grazing sheep. [Blevins] INDEX
Beauty
I cannot live with Beauty out of mind.
I search for her and desire her all the day;
Beauty, the choicest treasure you may find,
Most joyous and sweetest word his lips can say.
The crowded heart in me is quick with visions
And sweetest music born of a brighter day.

First stanza only, from Letters, 204-205,
postmarked February 9, 1917.

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The Change
Gone bare the fields now, and the starlings gather,
Whirr above stubble and soft changing hedges.
Changed the season chord too, F major or minor,
The gnats sing thin in clouds above the sedges.

And there is nothing proud now, not disconsolate,
Nothing youthful save where dark crocus flings
Summer’s last challenge toward winter’s merciless
Cohort, for whom the robin alone sings...

First two stanzas only,
The Collected Poems, 99.

Wainlode Hill with the blue line of Cotswold hills.
[Blevins] INDEX

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A meadow at Longford just down the road from where
Gurney lived with his aunt in 1921. [Blevins] INDEX. Longford Dawns
Of course not all watchers of the dawn
See Severn mists like forced-march mist withdrawn;
London has darkness changing into light
With just one quarter-hour of any weight.

Casual and common is the wonder grown -
Time’s a duty to lift light’s curtain up and down.
But here Time is caught up clear in Eternity,
And draws as breathless life as you or me.

The Collected Poems, 106.

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Gloucestershire, the Cathedral in the background. INDEX

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Gloucester Cathedral
[Blevins] INDEX

The Old City — Gloucester

Who says ‘Gloucester’ sees a tall
Fair fashioned shape of stone arise,
That changes with the changing skies
From joy to gloom funereal,
Then quick again to joy...

The Collected Poems, 51.

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Severn River and Gloucester Cathedral; Cotswold hills in the background. [Blevins] INDEX

Thanks to Pamela Blevins and Tony Boden for contributing several of the above photographs and some of the accompanying quotes and poems. Many of the other photographs come from Michael Hurd’s Ordeal of Ivor Gurney (Oxford University Press, 1978).

Tips on viewing the Gurney Photo Album: For best viewing, select a photo by clicking on the short caption in the INDEX at the top or bottom of the page. After viewing, look for the caption at the bottom of the photo, and click on the word INDEX to return to the top. Repeat.

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Ivor Gurney in 1915 -- Go to Top of Page

The Official Website of the Ivor Gurney Society