It is no answer to say that a poet may be lost, his writings forgotten. Of course they may—or they may be found again. The point is that the great poetic line is not subject to decay. So long as it is there at all, it is there in its fulness. And this is true of nothing else among the works of men.
On this account I envy those Eleven Poets from the lorry whom I met so long ago, and the Head Poet, or Mystagogue, their leader. I often wish I could meet them again.
These men were secure of something which no great soldier, no great painter, nor sculptor, nor architect—not even any great Secretary of State for Home Affairs or Master of the Buckhounds or Chief Whip—can boast. They had achieved the unique thing, the only deathless thing—that is, supposing they were Poets.
I suppose they must have been Poets, because they came labelled as Poets and were received as Poets; and, in fine, were by all external and social criteria, Poets. Just as a Lord is a Lord, or as a Judge is a Judge, so were they Poets. I really do not know what the definition is, but they were Poets. They were the possessors, the authors, the creators of that which no one could take from them and which will endure for ever—something that will never grow old. What a consolation for the memory of death! What a foretaste of immortality!
It is a fine thing to be able to say, and I can imagine one of these Eleven British Poets saying it:
"I have awkward manners and a foolish smile. I cannot earn more than a few hundreds a year, and my father left me nothing. I cut a poor figure among you all. But I have myself made: I am, therefore, a complete possessor. I am father and master of something entirely different from anything which you command: whether you command wealth, or lineage, or beauty, or any one of the talents which delight mankind in song or in instrument of music, or with the pencil, or even in building. I surpass you all, for I wrote this, that, or the other thing, and it will stand for ever."
Certainly of all boasts short of virtue it is the proudest boast a man can make.