It is wonderful that the project is on-going. And it is also wonderful how relatives of the poets contact me. On 23rd August 2021 I received a message about Rachael and have updated the information accordingly.
Rachael was born on 7th March 1897 in Great Crosby, West Derby, UK, which is now in Merseyside but was in Lancashire at the time of her birth. Her parents were Joseph Ambrose Bates, a painter and decorator, and his wife, Edith Annie, nee Grimshaw. The family lived in Cambridge Road Great Crosby (Merseyside), where Rachael worked as a secretary in the editorial department of the newspaper “The Liverpool Daily Post and Echo”.
Rachael’s poetry collection “Danae and Other poems” was published by Erskine Macdonald, London, in 1922.
“The Anachronism” a poem by Rachael Bates
Not here, not here do I belong —
These clanging nights, these iron days
Afford no beauty for my praise.
No inspiration for my song;
Amid the cold, incurious race
That seeks no traffic with the stars
Nor any news of ancient wars,
I have no certain dwelling-place.
But in a ruder, Braver day
Whose kings knew better than to die
Upon their beds contemptibly,
My dreams pursue their glittering way.
Not here, not here, but long ago
Above the crash of splintered swords
I shouted wild, ecstatic words
Across the bitter fields of woe.
And they that heard were doubly men
And leapt into the tide of death
With burning eyes and gusty breath
.And smote and fell and smote again.
What mattered then the myriad laws
Of petty wrongs and feeble right —
Oh, sweeter, sweeter far to fight
And die in some dear, hapless cause !
Not now, not now, but yesterday
You leaned above me and your hair
Fell downward through the golden air
And took fresh beauty on its way;
Across my heart I felt it flow
In broken light, and all your words
Flew down to me like homing birds —
Not here, not here, but long ago !
From “Danae and other poems”, pp 16 - 17
With thanks to Rachael's second cousin John Clark for pointing out that I had previously spelt Rachael's name incorrectly.
Not here, not here do I belong —
These clanging nights, these iron days
Afford no beauty for my praise.
No inspiration for my song;
Amid the cold, incurious race
That seeks no traffic with the stars
Nor any news of ancient wars,
I have no certain dwelling-place.
But in a ruder, Braver day
Whose kings knew better than to die
Upon their beds contemptibly,
My dreams pursue their glittering way.
Not here, not here, but long ago
Above the crash of splintered swords
I shouted wild, ecstatic words
Across the bitter fields of woe.
And they that heard were doubly men
And leapt into the tide of death
With burning eyes and gusty breath
.And smote and fell and smote again.
What mattered then the myriad laws
Of petty wrongs and feeble right —
Oh, sweeter, sweeter far to fight
And die in some dear, hapless cause !
Not now, not now, but yesterday
You leaned above me and your hair
Fell downward through the golden air
And took fresh beauty on its way;
Across my heart I felt it flow
In broken light, and all your words
Flew down to me like homing birds —
Not here, not here, but long ago !
From “Danae and other poems”, pp 16 - 17
With thanks to Rachael's second cousin John Clark for pointing out that I had previously spelt Rachael's name incorrectly.
Rachael's relative who send me the photograph also sent me an obituary for Rachael, which was published in a local paper:
