Page:Poems by Isaac Rosenberg (1922).djvu/43

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INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR

English poet? I've found somebody miles and miles above everybody—a young man, Lascelles Abercrombie—a mighty poet and brother to Browning."

Other references in letters show how deep at this time Mr. Abercrombie's influence was. Rosenberg calls his "Hymn of Love" the finest poem of our time.

He has now joined the Army, and writes from Bury St. Edmunds.

To Edward Marsh (1915).

"I have just joined the Bantams, and am down here amongst a horrible rabble. Falstaff's scarecrows were nothing to these. Three out of every four have been scavengers, the fourth is a ticket-of-leave. But that is nothing; though while I'm waiting for my kit I'm roughing it a bit, having come down without even a towel. I dry myself with my pocket-handkerchief. I don't know whether I will be shifted as soon as I get my rig-out."

The next was written in hospital at Bury.

To Edward Marsh.

"First, not to alarm you by this heading, I must tell you that while running before the Colonel I

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