Whereto the world keeps time,
And all things move with all things from their prime?
Who shall expound the mystery of the lyre?
In far retreats of elemental mind
Obscurely comes and goes
The imperative breath of song, that as the wind
Is trackless, and oblivious whence it blows.

Demand of lilies wherefore they are white,
Extort her crimson secret from the rose,
But ask not of the Muse that she disclose
The meaning of the riddle of her might.
Somewhat of all things sealed and recondite,
Save the enigma of herself, she knows.
The master could not tell, with all his lore,
Wherefore he sang, or whence the mandate sped;
E'en as the linnet sings, so I, he said--
Ah! rather as the imperial nightingale
That held in trance the ancient Attic shore,
And charms the ages with the notes that o'er
All woodland chants immortally prevail!
And now from our vain plaudits, greatly fled,
He with diviner silence dwells instead,
And on no earthly sea, with transient roar,
Unto no earthly airs, he trims his sail,
But, far beyond our vision and our hail,
Is heard for ever and is seen no more.

Now it matters not what flaws the austere critic might find with a
microscope in those lines. I feel certain that there is no one who would
not at this first reading experience that inevitable glow of
satisfaction which, in the cultured mind, is the unfailing criterion
that the art is good. Whether Mr. Watson is further an original poet, a
signal poetic force; whether he is a poet for the mind as much as for
the ear, is a further question to be decided by a detailed analysis; but
that he is a poet is, I beg leave to think, wholly undeniable. At first
sight, has there been anything better in this vein since _Lycidas_?

Here, again, is a brief part of a song from Davidson's _Fleet Street
Eclogue_ of May Day. I quote these lines in particular, because, unlike
most very short passages of this poet, they admit of being disentangled
from their setting. They are typical of only one side of a many-sided
being, the side which exults in the simple sensuous delights of nature.
They are two stanzas from the song of the nightingale as interpreted by
Basil:--

The lark from the top of heaven raved
Of the sunshine sweet and old;
And the whispering branches dipped and laved
In the light; and waste and wold
Took heart and shone; and the buttercups paved
The emerald meads with gold.