. One need not count him the equal of Campion in
order to feel that he has something of Campion's beautiful genius for
making airs out of words. He has little enough of the Keatsian genius for
choosing the word that has the most meaning for the seeing imagination.
But there is a secret melody in his words that, when once one has
recognized it, one can never forget.

How different the Georgian poets are from each other may be seen if we
compare three of the best poems in this book, all of them on similar
subjects--Mr. Davies's _Birds_, Mr. de la Mare's _Linnet_, and Mr.
Squire's _Birds_. Mr. Squire would feel as out of place in a hedge as
would Mr. de la Mare. He has an aquiline love of soaring and surveying
immense tracts with keen eyes. He loves to explore both time and the map,
but he does this without losing his eyehold on the details of the Noah's
Ark of life on the earth beneath him. He does not lose himself in vaporous
abstractions; his eye, as well as his mind, is extraordinarily
interesting. This poem of his, _Birds_, is peopled with birds. We see them
in flight and in their nests. At the same time, the philosophic wonder of
Mr. Squire's poem separates him from Mr. Davies and Mr. de la Mare. Mr.
Davies, I fancy, loves most to look at birds; Mr. de la Mare to listen to
birds; Mr. Squire to brood over them with the philosophic imagination. It
would, of course, be absurd to offer this as a final statement of the
poetic attitude of the three writers. It is merely an attempt to
differentiate among them with the help of a prominent characteristic of
each.

The other poets in the collection include Mr. Robert Graves (with his
pleasant bias towards nursery rhymes), Mr. Sassoon (with his sensitive,
passionate satire), and Mr. Edward Shanks (with his trembling
responsiveness to beauty). It is the first time that Mr. Shanks appears
among the Georgians, and his _Night Piece_ and _Glow-worm_ both show how
exquisite is his sensibility. He differs from the other poets by his
quasi-analytic method. He seems to be analyzing the beauty of the evening
in both these poems. Mrs. Shove's _A Man Dreams that He is the Creator_ is
a charming example of fancy toying with a great theme.

(3) THE YOUNG SATIRISTS

Satire, it has been said, is an ignoble art; and it is probable that there
are no satirists in Heaven. Probably there are no doctors either. Satire
and medicine are our responses to a diseased world--to our diseased
selves.