My parents, both born in 1904, were Edwardians and I have decided to follow my series of Victorian poets with a selection of poems written in that era.

But when exactly was that?

This is from Wikipedia:

The Edwardian period or Edwardian era in the United Kingdom is the period covering the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910.

The death of Queen Victoria, Empress of India in January 1901 and the succession of her son, Edward, marked the start of a new century and the end of the Victorian period.

While Victoria had shunned society, Edward was the leader of a fashionable elite which set a style influenced by the art and fashions of continental Europe—perhaps because of the King's fondness for travel.

The era was marked by significant shifts in politics as sections of society which had been largely excluded from wielding power in the past, such as common labourers and women, became increasingly politicised.

The period is often extended beyond Edward's death in 1910 to include the years up to the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, the start of World War I in 1914, or even the end of the war in 1918.

The war sealed the end of the period as the Edwardian way of life, with its inherent imbalance of wealth and power, became increasingly anachronistic in the eyes of a population suffering in the face of war, and exposed to mass propaganda decrying the injustice of class division.

I know very little about the literature of those times and I shall have to research it as I go along.

The poets are presented in no particular order, but I am beginning with James Elroy Flecker.

flecker

GRAVIS DULCIS IMMUTABILIS

Come, let me kiss your wistful face
Where Sorrow curves her bow of pain,
And live sweet days and bitter days
With you, or wanting you again.

I dread your perishable gold:
Come near me now; the years are few.
Alas, when you and I are old
I shall not want to look at you:

And yet come in. I shall not dare
To gaze upon your countenance,
But I shall huddle in my chair,
Turn to the fire my fireless glance,

And listen, while that slow and grave
Immutable sweet voice of yours
Rises and falls, as falls a wave
In summer on forgotten shores.

James Elroy Flecker (1884 – 1915)

Biographical Note:

James Elroy Flecker (1884-1915) was born in London on November 5, 1884.

His death in 1915 at the age of thirty was "unquestionably the greatest premature loss that English literature has suffered since the death of
Keats" (Macdonald, 1924).

The eldest son of the Rev. W. H. Flecker, Headmaster of Dean Close School, Flecker attended Trinity College, Oxford, and also Caius College, Cambridge, where he studied oriental languages in preparation for a consular career.

From 1910 to 1913 he held a series of minor consular posts in Constantinople, Smyrna, and Beirut, and these appointments reinforced his life-long love for the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

Flecker's health was not robust (he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1910 shortly after he entered the consular service) and he
was forced to take frequent leaves of absence from his posts, sometimes toreturn to England and sometimes to visit sanatoria in Switzerland.

He died in Davos, Switzerland, on January 3, 1915, and is buried in Cheltenham, England, at the foot of the Cotswold Hills. His grave is marked with a granite cross inscribed with the poet's own words: "O Lord, restore his realm to the dreamer."