len,
and even popular criticism will begin to know something about them. Some
day the few among us, who care for poetry more than any temporal thing,
and who believe that its delights cannot be perfect when we read it alone
in our rooms and long for one to share its delights, but that they might
be perfect in the theatre, when we share them friend with friend, lover
with beloved, will persuade a few idealists to seek out the lost art of
speaking, and seek out ourselves the lost art, that is perhaps nearest of
all arts to eternity, the subtle art of listening. When that day comes we
will talk much of Mr. Bridges; for did he not write scrupulous, passionate
poetry to be sung and to be spoken, when there were few to sing and as yet
none to speak? There is one play especially, _The Return of Ulysses_,
which we will praise for perfect after its kind, the kind of our new drama
of wisdom, for it moulds into dramatic shape, and with as much as possible
of literal translation, those closing books of the Odyssey which are
perhaps the most perfect poetry of the world, and compels that great tide
of song to flow through delicate dramatic verse, with little abatement of
its own leaping and clamorous speed. As I read, the gathering passion
overwhelms me, as it did when Homer himself was the singer, and when I
read at last the lines in which the maid describes to Penelope the battle
with the suitors, at which she looks through the open door, I tremble
with excitement.

'_Penelope_: Alas! what cries! Say, is the prince still safe?

_The Maid_: He shieldeth himself well, and striketh surely;
His foes fall down before him. Ah! now what can I see?
Who cometh? Lo! a dazzling helm, a spear
Of silver or electron; sharp and swift
The piercings. How they fall! Ha! shields are raised
In vain. I am blinded, or the beggar-man
Hath waxed in strength. He is changed, he is young. O strange!
He is all in golden armour. These are gods
That slay the suitors. (_Runs to Penelope._) O lady, forgive me.
Tis Ares' self. I saw his crisped beard;
I saw beneath his helm his curled locks.'

The coming of Athene helmed 'in silver or electron' and her transformation
of Ulysses are not, as the way is with the only modern dramas that popular
criticism holds to be dramatic, the climax of an excitement of the nerves,
but of that unearthly excitement which has wisdom for fruit, and is of
like kind with the ecstasy of the seers, an altar fla