Thanks for all your responses.
I'm in the pro-Cornford camp. I think that there is an over-emphasis on this triolet, which is not one of her better poems, I feel.
What she did as a middle-class woman of her time (she was the granddaughter of Darwin, and a descendant of Wordsworth), was just as Housman used a simple idiom to say profound things. I think it was also difficult for Cornford, as she was expected to write as women of her position were at that time - just as Housman could not admit to being gay, I get the impression her family and friends were of the opinion that she should stick to 'trivial matters' rather than take on the metaphysical or political.
Sometimes though, reading her work, I'm reminded of Elaine Showalter's famous quote that 'the personal is the political', and that she is able to use the traditional tropes in her favour, to ultimately subvert them.
I am delighted with her later work especially, and find it not only formally intriguing and a delight to read, but also something that has a lot to say.
Thanks,
Nigel
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