Freepedia is a series of free encyclopaedias. We currently specialize in history but we intend to branch out into other areas. This section is about Herbert Read.

Herbert Read was born in Kirby Moorside, Yorkshire in 1893. Educated in Halifax and Leeds University he served during the First World War as a captain in the Yorkshire Regiment and was awarded the Military Cross for bravery.

Read published two volumes of poetry on his war experiences: Songs of Chaos (1915) and Naked Warriors (1919). He also wrote two autobiographical accounts of life on the Western Front: In Retreat (1925) and Ambush (1930).

After the war Read was assistant keeper of the Victoria and Albert Museum (1922-31), professor of fine art at Edinburgh University (1931-33) and editor of the Burlington Magazine (1933-39).

Read wrote a large number of books on art and literature including: The Meaning of Art (1931), Form in Modern Poetry (1932), Art and Industry (1936), Art and Society (1936), Education Through Art (1943), The Philosophy of Modern Art (1952) and The True Voice of Feeling (1953). Sir Herbert Read died in 1968.

 

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Herbert Read

 

 

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(1) Herbert Read, The Refugees (1914)

Mute figures with bowed heads
They travel along the road:
Old women, incredibly old
and a hand cart of chattels.

They do not weep:
their eyes are too raw for tears.

Past them have hastened
processions of returning gunteams
baggage wagons and swift horsemen.
Now they struggle along
with the rearguard of a broken army.

We shall hold the enemy towards nightfall
and they will move
mutely into the dark behind us,
only the creaking cart disturbing their sorrowful serenity.