not my theme anyhow, but my friend Mr. Patmore's,
whose spirit has been standing indignantly by, as I wrote, as though it
were ordering me away, with a No Trespassing look. I will therefore
withdraw, merely adding that he himself didn't do any too well with it.

However, no poet can avoid an occasional slump. For all Mr. Patmore's
efforts, he needs to be edited as much as the rest of them. Some of his
little chance sayings were taking and odd:

"How strange a thing a lover seems
To animals that do not love."

But he always fell back into being humdrum and jog-trot. Take this
stanza, from his poetical flight entitled Tamerton Church Tower:

"I mounted, now, my patient nag,
And scaled the easy steep;
And soon beheld the quiet flag
On Lanson's solemn Keep.
But he was writing jokes for Punch;
So I, who knew him well,
Deciding not to stay for lunch,
Returned to my hotel."

May I ask why such verses should be enshrined in a standard collection
of poetry? The last four lines are good, they have a touch of humor or
lightness, perhaps; but what can be said for the first four? And they,
only, are Patmore's. The last four I added myself, in an effort to help.

"A man may mix poetry with prose as much as he pleases, and it will only
elevate and enliven," as Landor observed; "but the moment he mixes a
particle of prose with his poetry, it precipitates the whole."

* * * * *

All but the vulgar like poetry. This is using vulgarity in the sense in
which Iva Jewel Geary defines it, as being "in its essence the
acceptance of life as low comedy, and the willingness to be entertained
by it always, as such. Whereas poetry," she says, "is the interpretation
of life as serious drama: a play, in the main dignified and beautiful,
or tragic."

Some readers take to poetry as to music, because it enraptures the ear.
Others of us feel a need for its wisdom and insight--and wings. It
deepens our everyday moods. It reminds us of Wonder. Here we are, with
our great hearts and brains, descended from blind bits of slime,
erecting a busy civilization on a beautiful earth; and that earth is
whirling through space, amid great golden worlds: and yet, being
grandsons of slime, we forget to look around us.

As Patmore expressed it:

"An idle poet, here and there,
Looks round him; but, for all the rest,
The world, unfathomably fair,
Is duller