And be followed by all the year of flowers!
Smith, with P. J. Bailey, Sydney Dobell and others, belonged to what was called the “Spasmodic” school which the Britannica says is “now fallen into oblivion.” I do not know what this means. Smith, Bailey, and Dobell no doubt wrote extravagantly, but they have all written good verses. Take for example the following from Smith’s first poem, “A Life Drama,” written at twenty-two years of age:
All things have something more than barren use;
There is a scent upon the brier,
A tremulous splendour in the autumn dews,
Cold morns are fringed with fire;
The clodded earth goes up in sweet-breath’d flowers,
In music dies poor human speech,
And into beauty blow those hearts of ours,