2 Eastcliff Gardens
Folkestone
May 1st 1891
My dear Murray,
Thank you very much. The poems are very interesting to me,
but I doubt if they will thicken my volume directly. Catherine puzzles me:
I have not the slightest recollection of any stanza of it. Did I write it?
Is it a translation? I think not the latter; but it is devilish like. It is
much too long: and I fear it is too rude to be altered. The Long Land I like
in a fashion. But O the callowness of it; It cannot be altered, and I should
shudder at seeing such ingenuous callowness exposed to the public gaze. Item
it is tainted with imitation of Browning (as Browning then was). The Story
of the Flower I shall try to write: the two stanzas are certainly mine, though
these also I have utterly forgotten. The next ballad is too close an imitation
of a border one to be either altered or published just now I fear. 'Malmsten'
is (I think) a translation from a Danish one. The Stepmother certainly is.
'St Agnes &c' is a fragment and must stay as such; and I don't feel enclined
to publish fragments. I should like to see anything else you can show me before
you go. The Edge of the Wilderness I shall look up: I think it will do. Though
I went a drive yesterday I can't shake off my gout which is a nuisance. Again
very many thanks; I will consider the matter carefully.
Yours very truly
William Morris
Jenny is very well indeed, thank you, and enjoying herself hugely.