Francis Brown. “An Allegorical Novel.” The Daily Herald. May 23, 1927, p.7

An Allegorical Novel
To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf.
Hogarth Press, 7s. 6d.
The Editor sat in his chair
With his usual cheerful smile.
His voice was low, but his speech was
fair
And apparently void of guile.
“Write—write—write 
A review of this book!” said he;
And plunged me deep in a woeful 
plight
With my limited brain—ah, me!

[next column]

Words! words! words!
That jostle, and gallop, and rush!
Words—words—words—
An intangible, mystical mush!
Words—till I sit and stare
Like one in a darksome dream,
Groping about in a region where
Verbosity reigns supreme!

A tale of an egotist;
Of his wife, with a mind to give; 
Of their children, eight; and of guests,
a list;
But none of them seemed to live.
For nothing they seemed to yearn
(Save the husband, and praise he
sought),
And little they did, but we read and
learn
The myriad things they thought.
____________________________

THIS WEEK

We shall publish stories and
articles by H. G. Wells, Lord Olivier
Canon Donaldson, “Seamark,” and
Joe Corrie.
____________________________
Thoughts—thoughts—thoughts—
That off at a tangent fly,
With Life dragged in by the scruff of
its neck
With its how? and what? and why?
Thoughts that wander about
In a weird parenthetical style,
With meanings enmeshed in a web of 
doubt
Till their finding is scarce worth
while.

The story is told with vim—
With a fevered, violent stress;
Its moral, however, is more than dim
To me, as I must confess.
But if I, with a mild amaze,
Found the task of reading it hard,
Mrs. Woolf, no doubt, will account it 
praise,
For I’m but a doggerel bard.
FRANCIS BROWN.