SOURCE: "Laurie Lee's Poetry: English, Clean and—Well—Nice," in The Christian Science Monitor, April 6, 1976, p. 27.

Nye is a poet, critic, and essayist who lives in Scotland. In the review of I Can't Stay Long below, he notes that the most effective pieces in the collection revisit Lee's childhood and travels.

Laurie Lee is an underestimated English poet. He is underestimated because he has never gone out of his way to advertise himself or his work. Norman Cameron—another neglected poet—used to say of Mr. Lee that even when he wasn't very good, he was always clean. Mr. Lee's work, in verse and prose, speaks of a certain purity preserved or achieved at some cost in both eye and heart. He is also a generous and a good-humored writer.

Put all these qualities together, of course, and you have Cider With Rosie (1959), his masterpiece, that evocation of...