[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Beauty Imposes: Some Recent Verse (1938).] Beauty Imposes Beauty imposes reverence in the Spring. Grave as the urge within the honeybuds, It wounds us as we sing. Beauty is joy that stays not overlong. Clad in the magic of sincerities, It rides up in a […]

[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Beauty Imposes: Some Recent Verse (1938).] I Spoke to the Violet Shy one, I said, you can take me away in a breath, But I like not the coat that you come in — the colour of death. The silence you come with is sweeter […]

[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Beauty Imposes: Some Recent Verse (1938).] Sunday Evening Homeward, still homeward The calm folk ride, And the unsoiled children In dreams abide. Homeward, still homeward, Fond arms display Flowers and calm children — ’tis A holy day. The love will uphold them: Softly they bear […]

[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Beauty Imposes: Some Recent Verse (1938).] The Poor Can Feed the Birds Ragged, unheeded, stooping, meanly shod, The poor pass to the pond: not far away The spires go up to God. Shyly they come from the unpainted lane; Coats have they made of old […]

[Editor: This poem by John Shaw Neilson was published in Beauty Imposes: Some Recent Verse (1938).] He Saw the Jig He saw the jig, he said, an emerald thing With speech of love, whose blood is liberty: It lies beyond the fiddler and the string. Hotly it tells how innocence and mirth Came into love […]