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“The train from London left me at a small station whose name I had seen printed on The Poet’s letterheads and in the slim volumes of verse he published: Steyning. It was mid-morning in August, the air almost too bright, and the sky like blue china. A nervous wind came across the Downs, smelling faintly of hay and salt.
I carried my satchel, heavier than I had intended, stuffed with books, notebooks, and pens. I had never met The Poet in person, though we had corresponded. Mutual friends described him, variously, as a visionary or an idiot. His poetry, which I struggled to appreciate, seemed to waver between genuine tenderness and occult theatrics. His name often appeared as a footnote in my research, largely because of his association with that old fraud Aleister Crowley. In that relationship, I could never decide whether The Poet was a fool or a victim.”