A last gift of? Poem maybe but not really the time for right? Abstract, concrete, maybe personal, maybe an interrogation of things as they are towards an undetermined ending. Drawing to a conclusion, thanks for participating, these are your gifts.

Eric McCormick was, from about 1940 until his death in 1995, one of New Zealand's most distinguished writers and scholars. He pioneered the appreciation and study of the painter Francis Hodgkins, and he wrote several biographies. The autobiographical fragments collected here have been edited to make a coherent volume, tracing his origins in Taihape, to school and university in Wellington, to schoolteaching in Nelson, to Cambridge and through his wartime experiences and role as editor of Centennial Publications. It includes his shrewd observations of social behaviour, recorded with a dry wit.

Features 117 gems by Longfellow, Tennyson, Browning and many lesser-known poets. "The Village Blacksmith," "Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight," "Only a Baby Small," more, often difficult to find elsewhere. Index of poets, titles, first lines.