PROVOCATIONS

TO THE MEMORY

OF

MY FATHER JOHN SYER BRISTOWE, M.D., F.R.S., LL.D.

THIS LITTLE BOOK OF VERSE IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 

PROVOCATIONS BY SIBYL BRISTOWE

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

G. K. CHESTERTON

LONDON, W.C. 1

ERSKINE MACDONALD, LTD. 

All Rights Reserved. Copyright by Erskine MacDonald, Ltd. in the United States of America. First published October, 1918

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INTRODUCTION

The verses in this volume cover very many and various occasions; and are therefore the very contrary of what is commonly called occasional verse. The term is used with a meaning that is very mutable; or with a meaning that has been greatly distorted and degraded. Occasion should mean opportunity; and in the case of poetry it should rather mean provocation. And the trick of writing upon what are called public occasions, instead of upon what may truly be described as private provocations, has been responsible for much verse which is not only insufficient but insincere. It has produced not only many bad poems; but what is perhaps worse, many bad poems from many good poets. The sincerity of Miss Sibyl Bristowe's poetry is perhaps most clearly proved by the number of points at which it touches life; and the spontaneity, or even suddenness, with which they are touched. It is an occasional verse which arises out of real occasions, and not out of merely fictitious or even merely formal ones. Thus while the one or two poems on the great war are probably 

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