ped and
disguised it; the recapturing of the lost mysteries of touch and
fragrance, most wonderful amongst the avenues of sense. It
would mean the exchanging of the neat conceptual world our
thoughts build up, fenced in by the solid ramparts of the possible,
for the inconceivable richness of that unwalled world from which
we have subtracted it. It would mean that we should receive from
every flower, not merely a beautiful image to which the label
"flower" has been affixed, but the full impact of its unimaginable
beauty and wonder, the direct sensation of life having communion
with life: that the scents of ceasing rain, the voice of
trees, the deep softness of the kitten's fur, the acrid touch of sorrel
on the tongue, should be in themselves profound, complete, and
simple experiences, calling forth simplicity of response in our
souls.

Thus understood, the life of pure sensation is the meat and drink
of poetry, and one of the most accessible avenues to that union
with Reality which the mystic declares to us as the very object of
life. But the poet must take that living stuff direct from the field
and river, without sophistication, without criticism, as the life of
the soul is taken direct from the altar; with an awe that admits not
of analysis. He must not subject it to the cooking, filtering
process of the brain. It is because he knows how to elude this
dreadful sophistication of Reality, because his attitude to the
universe is governed by the supreme artistic virtues of humility
and love, that poetry is what it is: and I include in the sweep of
poetic art the coloured poetry of the painter, and the wordless
poetry of the musician and the dancer too.

At this point the critical reader will certainly offer an objection.
"You have been inviting me," he will say, "to do nothing more or
less than trust my senses: and this too on the authority of those
impracticable dreamers the poets. Now it is notorious that our
senses deceive us. Every one knows that; and even your own
remarks have already suggested it. How, then, can a wholesale
and uncritical acceptance of my sensations help me to unite with
Reality? Many of these sensations we share with the animals: in
some, the animals obviously surpass us. Will you suggest that my
terrier, smelling his way through an uncoordinated universe, is a
better mystic than I?"

To this I reply, that the terrier's contacts with the world are
doubtless crude and imperfect; yet he has ind