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| Simon Bussy Portrait of Lady Ottoline Morrell ca. 1920 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
from POEMS BY A CHILD
I know how poems come;
They have wings.
When you are not thinking of it
I suddenly say,
"Mother, a poem!"
Somehow I hear it
Rustling.
– Hilda Conkling (1920 – written and published at the age of 10)
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| Philip Wilson Steer Mrs Raynes 1922 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
CLOUDY-PANSY
Wandering down a dusty road,
I met a gypsy.
She might have dropped out of the trees.
She had a green kerchief
And a blue velvet skirt,
A lavender cape
And a gold locket:
Green shoes on her feet
That trod the powdery road
To the marble-floored Vermont river
Thinking as it goes along.
– Hilda Conkling (1922 – written and published at the age of 12)
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| Hilda Carline Self Portrait 1923 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
FLOWERS FADED AND GONE
A Bowl of Calendula Flowers
Their petals curl and shrivel,
They lean on the dark
They are like wet velvet.
Now we must let them go . . .
They are just leaving us.
Star-splashes of rain on velvet,
Crumpled fingers of tired hands.
They are a people I do not know
From another country:
What they are thinking is in my heart,
But without words.
Already they sigh under their stained gold
For the wind to scatter them.
Their look is blurred . . .
They wait for the wind.
– Hilda Conkling (1923 – written and published at the age of 13)
[Hilda Conkling's first poems were published at age 6 – she stopped writing at 14]
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| Juan Gris Pierrot with Book 1924 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Pablo Picasso Head of a Woman 1924 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| William Roberts Portrait of Esther Lahr 1925 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
ENDING
Heart of water,
Heart of a stone,
All I ask is
Leave me alone.
Heart of fire,
Heart of flood,
Light not, quench not
the flame in my blood.
All I dream
Is a dreamless night.
Heart of sunset,
Blow out the light.
– Florence Mayne Hickey (1925)
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| Walter Russell The Amber Beads ca. 1926 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Ambrose McEvoy Mrs Claude Johnson ca. 1926 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Giorgio de Chirico The Painter's Family 1926 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
A MINSTREL FROM THE ISLAND OF THE MOON
He Sings of Beauty
"An octagon woman with prismatic feet,
Ears in coils, two saw-teeth,
Came this morning with a rolling-pin,
And rolled out the sky to a pink sheet.
Strings of sunshine, tied to the sky,
Bound white angels in fluffy veils
To float and swing in the air.
But the moon set fire to their golden hair,
And they fell to earth, flaming torches,
Quenched in the cold black sea."
– Ottys Sanders (1926)
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| Duncan Grant Portrait of a Woman 1927 oil on paper, mounted on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Augustus John Viscount d'Abernon 1927-32 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Meredith Frampton Portrait of Marguerite Kelsey 1928 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Gilbert Spencer Self Portrait 1928 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
NOTE
If earth would end
When I died,
I could die
Satisfied.
– Dorothy Emerson (1928)
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| Henry Tonks Saturday Night in the Vale (George Moore reading aloud) 1928-29 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| John Lavery The Chess Players 1929 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)