POET HONOURED BY HIS BIRTHPLACE

Evening Star, Issue 23113, 12 November 1938, Page 23

POET HONOURED BY HIS BIRTHPLACE

POET LAUREATE’S TRIBUTE TO MR W. H. DAVIES The Poet Laureate, Mr John Masefield, was among guests entertained at a luncheon recently by the mayor of Newport, Alderman Mrs Hart, who had unveiled a commemorative plaque at the Church House Inn, near Newjiort Hocks, where William Henry Davies, the poet,' was born 67 years ago. The Mayor said that Mr Davies was beloved by his fellow townsmen, not entirely on account' of his literary achievements, but because he still retained that unassuming charm that was his in his boyhood. He was a worthy and a famous son of Newport. Mr Davies was present and greeted many people who had known his grandfather and father. ' The Poet Laureate, proposing the health of Mr Davies, said that poets brought their gifts of joy and asked bread of the world, and the world too late gave them a memorial stone. “ You know,” he said, “ the verses about the Persian poet:—

First Omar Khayyam wrote of wine Ami certainly all men must dine; Next Omar Khayyam wrote of love, A thing that most men aren’t above; Lastly, the man’s so plainly dead We can heap honours on his head.

.“You have not waited till Mr Davies is dead. You have done the rare thing—honoured him and delighted him when living. In cheering a living poet, you have exalted poetry and cheered all poets everywhere. You know that he is one of the men by whom Newport will be remembered in times to come. You know that he is unique—although born in the commercial age of the nineteenth century, he has been that very, very rare thing, a happy man singing out his songs of joy such as a happy bird will sing.

Mr Davies, who had not intended to speak, said that it would be ungracious and ungrateful not to thank the people who had organised this tribute to his wife and himself.

“ It seems strangely appropriate,” he said, “ that our presiding genius should bo the first woman mayor of Newport, and the reason is that of the lovers of poetry or the readers of poetry women outnumber men by two to one and sometimes more.” He appreciated the honour paid to him by his own townspeople. It was really a great day, and it made him think of what he would like to do for the town and county if only time and energy allowed. - -