c flowing through his verses rather than any
riches of imagery or phrase that makes one rank the author so high among
living poets. But music in verse can hardly be separated from intensity
and sincerity of vision. This music of Mr. de la Mare's is not a mere
craftsman's tune: it is an echo of the spirit. Had he not seen beautiful
things passionately, Mr. de la Mare could never have written:

Thou with thy cheek on mine,
And dark hair loosed, shalt see
Take the far stars for fruit
The cypress tree,
And in the yew's black
Shall the moon be.

Beautiful as Mr. de la Mare's vision is, however, and beautiful as is his
music, we miss in his work that frequent perfection of phrase which is
part of the genius of (to take another living writer) Mr. Yeats. One has
only to compare Mr. Yeats's _I Heard the Old, Old Men Say_ with Mr. de la
Mare's _The Old Men_ to see how far the latter falls below verbal mastery.
Mr. Yeats has found the perfect embodiment for his imagination. Mr. de la
Mare seems in comparison to be struggling with his medium, and contrives
in his first verse to be no more than just articulate:

Old and alone, sit we,
Caged, riddle-rid men,
Lost to earth's "Listen!" and "See!"
Thought's "Wherefore?" and "When?"

There is vision in some of the later verses in the poem, but, if we read
it alongside of Mr. Yeats's, we get an impression of unsuccess of
execution. Whether one can fairly use the word "unsuccess" in reference to
verse which succeeds so exquisitely as Mr. de la Mare's in being
literature is a nice question. But how else is one to define the peculiar
quality of his style--its hesitations, its vaguenesses, its obscurities?
On the other hand, even when his lines leave the intellect puzzled and the
desire for grammar unsatisfied, a breath of original romance blows through
them and appeals to us like the illogical burden of a ballad. Here at
least are the rhythms and raptures of poetry, if not always the beaten
gold of speech. Sometimes Mr. de la Mare's verse reminds one of
piano-music, sometimes of bird-music: it wavers so curiously between what
is composed and what is unsophisticated. Not that one ever doubts for a
moment that Mr. de la Mare has spent on his work an artist's pains. He has
made a craft out of his innocence. If he produces in his verse the effect
of the wind among the reeds, it is the result not only of his artlessness,
but of his art. He is one of the modern poets