More fandom parallels

[regshoe]

...the tide which for a year had been carrying the Englishman, half ignorant, sometimes resisting, among unlooked-for reefs and breakers, away from the safe, the stagnant Dead Sea of his choice, had borne him to no unfitting anchorage...

—D. K. Broster, The Flight of the Heron

All quests end here, all voyagings, all ventures:
Is not my white breast haven to your sail?

—'The Wave's Song', quoted by D. K. Broster as the epigraph to Book Four of Sir Isumbras at the Ford, although I'm not sure of the original source (any ideas?)

We are drawn together because we are drawn. We are content to abide together just because we are content. We feel that we have reached a certain harbour, after much or little drifting, just because it is for that haven, after all, that we have been moving on and on; with all the irresistible pilotry of the wide ocean-wash friendly to us.

—Edward Prime-Stevenson, Imre: A Memorandum

:)

(hmm, there is also the title of the epilogue to Flight of the Heron, of course...)

Comments

[sovay]

(reposting this because I f**** up the comment thread, sorry about that!)

No worries!

so it might be something super rare, or that has faded into obscurity, or not made it online.

I wondered about something recognizable to an audience of 1918 and dead obscure to an audience a century later, but it's still curious to me that she doesn't credit it. The one recurring author of hers I wouldn't have the capacity to identify is Hebert Trench, but she names him in the other two novels—Almond, Wild Almond and The Wounded Name—in which I've seen him quoted. Everything else in Sir Isumbras at the Ford is balladry, so it would make a certain sense if "The Wave's Song" were something in the folk tradition, but it's just the wrong style.

But if she wrote it herself, then that would be delightful, because that was very much Prime-Stevenson's style, and so it would add another parallel to this awesome post!

Does anyone in this circle have access to her poetry? I saw the existence of the one posthumously published volume, but also that it doesn't seem to be available online.

[theseatheseatheopensea]

It's a a bit of a mystery, isn't it? I'll definitely keep on searching! :D

I am *so* curious about that posthumous poetry collection (I think it was privately published by her friend/housemate Gertrude Schlich?!) Some of the poetry DKB published during her lifetime can be found online, and I've included it in this list (along with a bunch of other interesting things!) If you ever happen to run into something that isn't there, please let me know, and I'll add it!