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B157
The Vineyard. March 1912

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Gladys Mary Meredith [Mary Webb]. “Very Early,” in the Vineyard, Maude Egerton King, ed. London: A. C. Fifield, March, 1912. In her earliest published poems, such as “Very Early,” Webb expresses her joy in life and shows the intimacy and intensity of her relationship with nature. In The Spring of Joy (essays written around the turn of the century but not published until 1917), Webb recalls: “As a child, I remember standing awe-struck at the strange beauty of a well known field in the magic of a June dawn.” Later critics were to say that Webb’s senses were “rarely delicate” (Walter de la Mare) and of “microscopic keenness” (Martin Armstrong).