In Retreat

This long poem is written in pen in Ivor Gurney's hand, in a notebook headed 'Poems to Old New England of Ivor Gurney', and is dedicated 'To Staten Island / in the name of Alan Seeger / Walt Whitman / Leo Count Tolstoy', with an explanatory note regarding each of these figures. These poems were written while Gurney was a patient at Stone House, Dartford, Kent, otherwise known as the City of London Mental Hospital.