SOURCE: Ashton, Theresa. “Edward Thomas: From Prose to Poetry.” The Poetry Review 28 (November-December 1937): 449-55.

In the following essay, Ashton examines the poetic qualities in Thomas's prose and traces his development as a poet.

The commemorative stone has been duly unveiled on the Shoulder of Mutton Hill in Hampshire and the tablet has been placed on Berryfield Cottage at the foot of the hill: but every memorial is also a memorial to the inadequacy of the heart of man—as doubly significant as the neat signpost of the National Trust set up in the England Edward Thomas loved so faithfully.

Tchehov once wrote to Gorki: “You are an artist, a wise man; you feel superbly, you are plastic; that is, when you describe a thing you see it and touch it with your hands.” The natural world created in Edward Thomas not a rich Lawrentian ecstasy nor a tortured...