d largesses of rain."

Davidson later became an offensively shrill preacher of materialism
and lost his early charm. Some of the best of his poetry may be found
in _Fleet Street Ecologues_.

Francis Thompson (1860-1907), a Catholic poet, who has been called a
nineteenth-century Crashaw, passed much of his short life of suffering
in London, where he was once reduced to selling matches on a street
corner. His greatest poem, _The Hound of Heaven_ (1893), is an
impassioned lyrical rendering of the passage in the _Psalms_
beginning: "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I
flee from thy presence?" While fleeing down "the long savannahs of the
blue," the poet hears a Voice say:--

"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."

William Watson (1858- ), a London poet, looked to Milton,
Wordsworth, and Arnold as his masters. Some of Watson's best verse,
such as _Wordsworth's Grave_, is written in praise of dead poets. His
early volume _Epigrams_ (1884), containing one hundred poems of four
lines each, shows his power of conveying poetic thought in brief
space. One of these poems is called _Shelley and Harriet Westbrook_:--

"A star looked down from heaven and loved a flower,
Grown in earth's garden--loved it for an hour:
Let eyes that trace his orbit in the spheres
Refuse not, to a ruin'd rosebud, tears."[4]

Many expected to see Watson appointed poet-laureate to succeed
Tennyson. Possibly mental trouble, which had temporarily affected him,
influenced the choice; for Alfred Austin (1835-1913) received the
laureateship in 1896. Like the Pre-Raphaelites, Watson disliked those
whom he called a "phrase-tormenting fantastic chorus of poets." His
best verse shows depth of poetic thought, directness of expression,
and a strong sense of moral values.

The Victorian age has provided poetry to suit almost all tastes. In
striking contrast with those who wrestled with the eternal verities
are such poets and essayists as Austin Dobson (1840- ), long a clerk
of the London Board of Trade, and Arthur Symons (1865- ), a poet and
discriminating prose critic. Austin Dobson, who is fond of
eighteenth-century subjects, is at his best in graceful society verse.
His poems show the touch of a highly skilled metrical artist who has
been a careful student of French poetry. His ease of expression,
freshness, and humor charm readers of his verse without making serious
demands on their attention. His best poems are found