Treasury

I remember this copy of Palgrave's Golden Treasury on the bookshelves when I was a child. Time was that many households had a copy of this anthology of verses, perhaps their only volume of poetry. It moved onto my shelves after my mother died last year. For some reason I picked it off today. Inside it is inscribed with my mother's maiden name followed by UV, which I assume was her form number, so I guess she was about 14 or 15 when it came into her possession in the 1930s. The publication date is 1933. The book has several annotations suggesting that my mother read many of the poems closely and pondered on their meaning. On the back flyleaf are the initials of one or two close friends - a beloved gym teacher and an early boyfriend. There's also a schematic drawing that seems to be working out the characters in Swinburne's poem The Hounds of Spring. And then a few pages in from the back I found the lines below in my mother's handwriting. I've googled them and nothing comes back so it seems possible that these are my mother's own words. I might never know for sure but it's an interesting possibility...

The cool fresh breath of evening came stealing o’er the sea
Breaking the unrest and the turmoil in the brain. The awful
clawing pain inside the body , rising up, waiting to choke.

Music, the healer of pain, the stirrer of emotions.

How beautiful is the blue of the sky.
Large white birds fly overhead, their wings
a large expanse of white, feathers so close,
allowing the wind, taking them into flight.

A mass together, catching the smaller birds, as they pass by.