"Telling His Loneliness To The Solitary Stars"

The closing lines of John Masefield's "The Dead Knight" -- "The mournful word the seas say/When tides are wandering out or in" -- brought to mind a lovely poem by John Freeman (1880-1929).  I recently spouted off to the effect that "it is the poem that matters, not the poet."  In retrospect, this sounds too highfalutin', but my point is this:  a large number of fine poems tend to be overlooked simply because they were not written by well-known poets.

As long-time (and much-appreciated!) readers of this blog may have noticed, I am determined (in my tiny way) to save some of these poems (and the poets who wrote them) from oblivion.  I harbor no illusions about what I am up against -- the news of the world, and all the other deafening noise out there -- but I am stubborn.

Christopher Nevinson (1889-1946), "The Old Harbour"

                    The Hounds

Far off a lonely hound
Telling his loneliness all round
To the dark woods, dark hills, and darker sea;

And, answering, the sound
Of that yet lonelier sea-hound
Telling his loneliness to the solitary stars.

Hearing, the kennelled hound
Some neighbourhood and comfort found,
And slept beneath the comfortless high stars.

But that wild sea-hound
Unkennelled, called all night all round --
The unneighboured and uncomforted cold sea.

John Freeman, Stone Trees and Other Poems (1916).

Perhaps I am deluded, but I would stack this small poem up against any number of poems written by "major" poets.  I loved this poem the first time that I read it, and it has stayed with me ever since.  Is it the simple, recurring rhymes?  (Which seem to mimic the cries of the hounds and the sway of the sea.)  Is it the repetition of certain words?  Or is it the lonely middle-of-the-night feeling that all of us know too well?  (If I am not being presumptuous.)

Best to leave it alone.

Dane Maw (1908-1989), "Scottish Landscape, Air Dubh"