... An endless trackless, heather forest
And so, between whiles,
When my mind's all reeling with Modern Movements
And my eyes are weary, my head at its sorest
And the best of beer has lost its zest,
I go up there to get a rest
And think of the dead...
from 'To All the Dead'

Ford Madox Ford (1873-1939) published thirteen volumes of poetry between 1893 and 1936, crucial transitional years in the evolution of modern poetry. His early poems were written under the shadow of the Rossettis, Swinburne and William Morris, but Ford outgrew their heady late-Victorian lyricism, developing a voice that was natural, impressionistic, and ironic.

This selection of his verse traces his development from the haunting poignancy of his early poems to his later style, which was to be so influential in the development of Modernism. Ezra Pound considered him to be the best lyric poet in England, and it was Ford who taught Pound that 'poetry should be as well written as prose'. He transformed Pound's style and, through Pound, the styles of Yeats and Eliot.