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Knight, Dame Laura and Walter James Turner 02
Identifier
024359
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Poem by Walter James Turner
Turner was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1889 and was educated at Scotch College, Adelaide. He came to London in 1906, and served in the Royal Garrison Artillery between 1916 and 1918. After the war he became the music critic of the New Statesman from 1916 until 1940 and the drama critic of the London Mercury between 1919 and 1923. He succeeded Siegfried Sassoon as literary editor of the Daily Herald in 1920. He died in 1946.
In For Repairs (1941) – showing a partly inflated barrage balloon being repaired by members of the WAAF at Wythall, near Birmingham. The painting was shown at the Royal Academy in 1941.
A description of the experience
Men Fade Like Rocks
Rock-like the souls of men
Fade, fade in time.
Falls on Worn surfaces,
Slow chime on chime,
Sense, like a murmuring dew,
Soft sculpturing rain,
Or the wind that blows hollowing
In every lane.
Smooth as the stones that lie
Dimmed, water-Worn,
Worn of the night and day,
In sense forlorn,
Rock-like the souls of men
Fade, fade in time;
Smoother than river-rain
Falls chime on chime.