Observations placeholder
Knight, Dame Laura and Walter James Turner 01
Identifier
024358
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.
Bomber Construction 1944
A description of the experience
The Navigators
I saw the bodies of earth’s men
Like Wharves thrust in the stream of time
Whereon cramped navigators climb
And free themselves in the warm sun:
With outflung arms and shouts of joy
Those spirits tramped their human planks;
Then pressing close, reforming ranks,
They pushed off in the stream again:
Cold darkly rotting lay the wharves,
Decaying in the stream of time;
Slow winding silver tracks of slime
Showed bright where came back none.