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Ivor Gurney in 1915 - Go to Home Page


Gurney Photo Album
A Selection: Gurney's World
Notes & Tips on viewing

Gurney: 1905War-1915 High Wycombe in 19191920 Stormy & Pensive1922
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
CheesmanDrummondFinziHarveyHowellsScott
Gloucestershire Landmarks on Greeting Cards


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By Severn

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See Severn mists like forced-march mist withdrawn;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 Hurds 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.


Gurney: 1905War-1915 High Wycombe in 19191920 Stormy & Pensive1922
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
CheesmanDrummondFinziHarveyHowellsScott
Gloucestershire Landmarks on Greeting Cards


 
 
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write to David Kenneth Smith.
Ivor Gurney in 1915 -- Go to Top of Page
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