It would be easy to point to faults in Mr. Phillips' work. His sense of rhythm, even allowing for what are plainly deliberate experiments in discord, seems often curiously defective. How stiff and limping, for example, is the following:—
"O pity us,
For I would ask of thee only to look
Upon the wonderful sunlight and to smell
Earth in the rain. Is not the labourer
Returning heavy through the August sheaves
Against the setting sun, who gladly smells
His supper from the opening door—is he
Not happier than these melancholy kings?
How good it is to live, even at the worst!