r quiet narrative, admirable
in their place; but their place is not everywhere. Poetry has many modes
of music; she does not blow through one pipe alone. Directness of
utterance is good, but so is the subtle recasting of thought into a new
and delightful form. Simplicity is good, but complexity, mystery,
strangeness, symbolism, obscurity even, these have their value. Indeed,
properly speaking, there is no such thing as Style; there are merely
styles, that is all.

One cannot help feeling also that everything that Mr. Sharp says in his
preface was said at the beginning of the century by Wordsworth, only
where Wordsworth called us back to nature, Mr. Sharp invites us to woo
romance. Romance, he tells us, is 'in the air.' A new romantic movement
is imminent; 'I anticipate,' he says, 'that many of our poets, especially
those of the youngest generation, will shortly turn towards the "ballad"
as a poetic vehicle: and that the next year or two will see much romantic
poetry.'

The ballad! Well, Mr. Andrew Lang, some months ago, signed the death-
warrant of the ballade, and--though I hope that in this respect Mr. Lang
resembles the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, whose bloodthirsty orders
were by general consent never carried into execution--it must be admitted
that the number of ballades given to us by some of our poets was,
perhaps, a little excessive. But the ballad? Sir Patrick Spens, Clerk
Saunders, Thomas the Rhymer--are these to be our archetypes, our models,
the sources of our inspiration? They are certainly great imaginative
poems. In Chatterton's Ballad of Charity, Coleridge's Rhyme of the
Ancient Mariner, the La Belle Dame sans Merci of Keats, the Sister Helen
of Rossetti, we can see what marvellous works of art the spirit of old
romance may fashion. But to preach a spirit is one thing, to propose a
form is another. It is true that Mr. Sharp warns the rising generation
against imitation. A ballad, he reminds them, does not necessarily
denote a poem in quatrains and in antique language. But his own poems,
as I think will be seen later, are, in their way, warnings, and show the
danger of suggesting any definite 'poetic vehicle.' And, further, are
simplicity and directness of utterance really the dominant
characteristics of these old imaginative ballads that Mr. Sharp so
enthusiastically, and, in some particulars, so wisely praises? It does
not seem to me to be so. We are always apt to think that the voi