Inscription by the author Monk Gibbon, poet, known as The Grand Old Man of Irish Letters, “for dear Hubert and Patsy” dated “1947”, “Finchley”; poem titled “Poet and Young Girl. A l’ombre d’une jeune fille. Kuhtai 1935.” Poem comprising 8 stanzas. In his inscription Gibbon writes that the poem is “mentioned in “Mount Ida” (that book with which they contended in typescript long before it came to be inflicted on the general public.)” Mount Ida, Gibbon’s autobiographical work on the theme of love was published in 1948.
The poem, rather melancholic in tone but with a quiet beauty, records an episode of unrequited love and the ephemeral nature of such passions.
“But you, what joy is yours, who gave the theme;
The mute accomplice in this theft from time,
Your beauty lingering like some lovely shade
Besides the Lethe of a soon-lost rhyme […]
The god [Cupid] will pass, the grove will silent grow
Whatever arrows speed there soon be flown,
Leaving within your hands not even this -
The barren leafage of a laurel crown.“
Also inscribed by the recipient “J. Hubert Dingwall.”
Slightly dusty, glassine wrapper damaged (only half remains).
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