These two poets illustrate a tendency to introduce a new realistic poetry. Wordsworth wrote of Michael and the Westmoreland peasantry, but Masefield and Gibson have taken as subjects of verse the toilers of factory, foundry, and forecastle. Closeness to life and simplicity of narration characterize these authors. They approximate the subject matter and technique of realistic fiction.
Alfred Noyes.—Alfred Noyes was born in 1880 in Wolverhampton Staffordshire. He wrote verse while an Oxford undergraduate and he has since become one of the leading poets of the twentieth century. He has traveled in England and in America, reading his poems and lecturing on literary subjects.
[Illustration: ALFRED NOYES.]
The Flower of Old Japan (1903) is a fairy tale of children who dream of the pictures on blue china plates and Japanese fans. The poem is symbolic. The children are ourselves; and Japan is but the "kingdom of those dreams which …are the sole reality worth living and dying for."
The poet says of this kingdom:—
"Deep in every heart it lies
With its untranscended skies;
For what heaven should bend above
Hearts that own the heaven of love?"[8]
The Forest of Wild Thyme (1905) affords another
"Hour to hunt the fairy gleam
That flutters through this childish dream."[9]
There is also a deeper meaning to be read into this poem. The mystery of life, small as well as great, is found simply told in these lines:—
"What does it take to make a rose,
Mother-mine?
The God that died to make it knows
It takes the world's eternal wars,
It takes the moon and all the stars,
It takes the might of heaven and hell
And the everlasting Love as well,
Little child."[10]