Humbert Wolfe

Humbert Wolfe, CB, CBE (1885-01-05 – 1940-01-05) was an Italian-born English poet, biographer, literary critic, translator and civil servant. Hugely popular during his own lifetime, his poems have since fallen into neglect.

Sourced

• The children play
  At hide and seek
  About the monument
  To Speke.
  And why should the dead
  Explorer mind
  Who has nothing to seek
  And nothing to find?
  • "Speke", from Kensington Gardens (London: Ernest Benn, [1924] 1927) p. 50.

• Space is a wind that does not blow
  On Betelgeuse and time – oh time – is a bird,
  Whose wings have never stirred
  The golden avenues of leaves
  On Betelgeuse.
  • "Betelgeuse", from The Unknown Goddess (London: Methuen, [1925] 1927) p. 34.

• You cannot hope
  To bribe or twist,
  Thank God! The
  British journalist.
  
  But, seeing what
  The man will do
  Unbribed, there's
  No occasion to.
  • "Over the Fire", from The Uncelestial City (London: Victor Gollancz, 1930) p. 30.