Page:For remembrance, soldier poets who have fallen in the war, Adcock, 1920.djvu/235

Rh In a letter to Galloway Kyle, enclosing the sonnet sequence, 'The Undying Splendour,' which was to give the title to his volume, Streets offers this apologia and explanation: 'They were inspired while I was in the trenches, where I have been so busy I have had little time to polish them. I have tried to picture some thoughts that pass through a man's brain when he dies. I may not see the end of the poems, but hope to live to do so. We soldiers have our views of life to express, though the boom of death is in our ears. We try to convey something of what we feel in this great conflict to those who think of us, and sometimes, alas! mourn our loss. We desire to let them know that in the midst of our keenest sadness for the joy of life we leave behind, we go to meet death grim-lipped, clear-eyed, and resolute-hearted.' Which merely reflects the man as he reveals himself, without premeditation, in his verses; and there is testimony to the truth of the picture in a note from his company officer, Captain Moore: '...When he was reported