Humbert Wolfe

Humbert Wolfe CB CBE (5 January 1885 – 5 January 1940) 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.

Quotes

• 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.