William Henry Davies (1871–1940)

My school house master, Peter Forest, who was also my maths teacher, one day stated in front of the whole class that i'd either grow up to be the next Einstein or a tramp, and that he feared it would most probably be the latter.   Suffice it to say, i never did get around to doing that degree in theoretical physics.

So when i found this book on Amazon it reminded me of Peter Forest and his condemnation of my future and was certainly instrumental in my purchase.   I wasn't disappointed, so show more thanks Peter.

The strange thing was the timing, as i let the 'Infinite Improbability Drive' always select my next book from 'The Pile' and it's only been a couple of books since i finished 'Into The Wild', about Chris McCandless, AKA, Alexander Supertramp.   This book certainly flows nicely on from that.   It makes me wonder if Chris had actually read this amongst all the other books mentioned in his story.

William covers his adventures as a tramp during the late 1800's, where he ventures far and wide.   The funniest thing for me was that he was a trustifarian.   I had no idea that these creatures existed back in the 1800, but it's certainly true in William's case, and he even admits it in the book.

When his grandmother died, instead of willing him her property, which she knew he would squander rather quickly, she instead put it into trust from which he was given an allowance.   So off he goes to America, tramping around, living on hand outs and goodwill, while all the time his weekly allowance from his trust fund is being saved up for his return.   And he can return at any time, by working cattle ships from Baltimore, and even getting paid while doing so.

Even later on when he gets back the England, he continues to drop out into his tramping lifestyle while his trust fund rebuilds his bank account in order to fund his next adventure.   I wonder if William was the original trustifarian, were there others before him?

Without a doubt, a very good inside look into the mind and lifestyle of the typical trustifarian.   But, on top of that, it's a very revealing look into this odd sub-culture of the underclass of the age and the lifestyles they lead and how they managed to support themselves.   Although, one can't really get away from realising that most of these people were simply down where they were due to alcoholism, with every opportunity of spending any penny they managed to accrue on getting drunk always eagerly taken -- no, nothing much changes.

Anyways, an enlightening piece of history of the Victorian age seen from a very different view point to the normal history books and biographies. show less

"What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.
(opening lines from Leisure not included in this collection)

W H Davies certainly found plenty of time to stand around and stare and some might say he did little else. This collection of 47 of his poems was published in 1914 at a time when war was raging on the continent and although we do not know when Davies composed these poems, there is not a hint of the conflict in any of them. Davies seems to have been a poet who show more lived very much in his own world and he recorded what he saw and what he felt, nothing much troubles him outside of this world and his poems can reach the depths of banality.

His simple view of life finds plenty of expression in this collection and are typical of his output. He writes charmingly about nature, sometimes with a wistfulness that borders on melancholy, but usually his themes are full of simple delight in the world around him.

"How sweet this morning air in spring,
When tender is the grass, and wet
I see some little leaves have not
Outgrown their curly childhood yet ;
And cows no longer hurry home,
However sweet a voice cries " Come."

He writes about dumb nature, the innocence of childhood, about love, life passing, roaming the countryside and of life in the London Shelters where his roaming sometimes took him. He gently castigates people who live in the world of work and money and who deny themselves the simple pleasures of living freely.

He was a popular poet whose short poems often written with a simple rhyming scheme are not difficult to grasp. Unfortunately they are also full of clichés and rhymes that are all too obvious and although he keeps the form of his poems simple he can struggle with the syntax, producing moments of unlikely discord. There are no hidden meanings, hardly any ambiguity and one suspects they are true of his feelings because nothing much else occurred to him. Reading his poems can be like seeing the world through the eyes of a child; not always a bad thing, but too much of it can make the poems seem inconsequential.

However he can find images that hit the mark and a few of his poems are effective:

The Hawk

THOU dost not fly, thou art not perched,
The air is all around :
What is it that can keep thee set,
From falling to the ground ?
The concentration of thy mind
Supports thee in the air ;
As thou dost watch the small young birds,
With such a deadly care.

My mind has such a hawk as thou,
It is an evil mood ;
It comes when there's no cause for grief,
And on my joys doth brood.
Then do I see my life in parts ;
The earth receives my bones,
The common air absorbs my mind —
It knows not flowers from stones.

I rated all the poems from 1-5 and came up with an average of 2.5. which I think will serve as my rating for the collection as a whole. show less

A remarkable story of how he left an accepted normal way of life and taking up an itinerant lifestyle.
It is a diary like, simple easy going rambling but quaint old style prose.
A nonchalant reporting of his accident, which didn’t appear to change his way of life.
Fascinating nick names of his compatriots, and how they used their cash to the full.

Absolutely excellent - hard to think of a better book of its type.

Somehow you know Davies is writing the truth of his life as he remembered it. The bloke was a brilliant poet too, so may be that played a part.