A Chant of Love for England, and Other Poems

This is wartime poetry that aches with the particular grief of 1915 - that terrible early year of the Great War when England was still learning what it had asked of its young men. Helen Gray Cone writes with an elegance that feels almost medieval in its formality, but her heart breaks through every archaism. The title poem is a stirring tribute to English spirit, but it's the elegies for fallen soldiers that cut deepest: poems where pride and mourning become inseparable, where 'light about their brows' marks those who died 'for their lovely land.' Cone invokes literary and historical ghosts - figures of English heritage - while exploring what it means to love a country enough to watch its sons sacrifice themselves for it. There's redemption here too, in poems like 'The Gaoler' and 'The Ride to the Lady,' suggesting that even in wartime darkness, the soul can find its way home. For readers who want poetry that understands how grief and love can live in the same breath, this collection offers both beauty and sorrow.