THE NEW POETS
There's a dark window in a gable which looks out over my narrow slip of garden, where the almond-trees grow, and to-day the dark window, with its black casement lines, had become suddenly a Japanese panel. The almond was in bloom, with its delicious, pink, geometrical flowers, not a flower which wins one's love, somehow; it is not homely or sweet enough for that. But it is unapproachably pure and beautiful, with a touch of fanaticism about it—the fanaticism which comes of stainless strength, as though one woke in the dawn and found an angel in one's room: he would not quite understand one's troubles!
But when I looked lower down, there was a sweeter message still, for the mezereon was awake, with its tiny porcelain crimson flowers and its minute leaves of bright green, budding as I think Aaron's rod must have budded, the very crust of the sprig bursting into little flames of green and red.
I thought at the sight of all this that some good fortune was about to befall me; and so it did. When I came back there came a friend to see me whom I seldom see and much enjoy seeing. He is young, but he plays a fine part in the world, and he carries about with him two very fine qualities; one is a great and generous curiosity about what our writers are doing. He is the first man from whom I hear of new and beautiful work; and he praises it royally, he murmurs phrases, he even declaims it in his high, thin voice, which wavers like a dry flame. And what makes all this so refreshing is that his other great quality is an intensely critical spirit, which stares closely and intently at work, as through a crystalline lens.
After we had talked a little, I said to him: "Come, praise me some new writers, you herald of the dawn! You always do that when you come to see me, and you must do it now." He smiled secretly, and drew out a slim volume from his pocket and read me some verses; I will not be drawn into saying the name of the poet.
"How do you find that?" he said.
"Oh," I said, "it is very good; but is it the finest gold?"
"Yes," he said, "it is that." And he then read me some more.
"Now," I said, "I will be frank with you. That seems to me very musical and accomplished; but it has what is to me the one unpardonable fault in poetry: it is literary. He has heard and read, that poet, so much sweet and solemn verse, that his mind murmurs like a harp hung among the trees that are therein; the winds blow into music. But I don't want that; I want a fount of song, a spring of living water." He looked a little vexed at that, and read me a few more pages. And then he went on to praise the work of two or three other writers, and added that he believed there was going to be a great outburst of poetry after a long frost.
"Well," I said, "I am sure I hope so. And if there is one thing in the world that I desire, it is that I may be able to recognise and love the new voices."