My dead love came to me, and said:
'God gives me one hour's rest,
To spend with thee on earth again:
How shall we spend it best?'
'Why, as of old,' I said; and so
We quarrelled, as of old:
But, when I turned to make my peace,
That one short hour was told.
_Laurence Binyon_
Laurence Binyon was born at Lancaster, August 10, 1869, a cousin of
Stephen Phillips; in _Primavera_ (1890) their early poems appeared
together. Binyon's subsequent volumes showed little distinction until
he published _London Visions_, which, in an enlarged edition in 1908,
revealed a gift of characterization and a turn of speech in surprising
contrast to his previous academic _Lyrical Poems_ (1894). His _Odes_
(1901) contains his ripest work; two poems in particular, "The
Threshold" and "The Bacchanal of Alexander," are glowing and unusually
spontaneous.
Binyon's power has continued to grow; age has given his verse a new
sharpness. "The House That Was," one of his most recent poems,
appeared in _The London Mercury_, November, 1919.