nguages, the
feeling and perception of friendship, nature, and the whole
life-process through which men pass to a green memory or to
oblivion--these are to be found here, the full-bodied expression of a
personality--for poetry is that, or nothing. It is no defect in it
that it is of 1872--that there is a certain formality, a kind of
austerity, even, in its flippancies. It is meditative poetry. It is
poetry which is essentially concerned with the emotions, the fancies,
or the reflections, the very personal and secluded reflections, of a
mind still concerned about the private ways of the spirit. The
emotions, the operations of the mind, and the objective things of
life--they are the concern of Mr. Gosse as they were the concern of
Tennyson, Browning, Arnold, Morris, and many poets before them. For
the most part the men of that age adhered to the traditions of poetry,
whether they were romantic or classical. At any rate on the formal
side most of them--Browning is an exception--remained faithful to the
accepted types. On the inner side it was an age which was much
concerned about its soul, about nature, and about persons--yes, about
persons. Whatever we may think about the Victorian age, from its
literature at least we should conclude that it was an age when men
valued friendships. And so its best poetry was essentially emotional,
personal and subjective.

Now I do not suggest that in the poetry of our younger men there is
emerging a single new type with a few distinctive characteristics
which can be contrasted with Victorian poetry. On the contrary, if
there is anything which we should particularly remark, it is the
absence of such typical traits, it is the extraordinary diversity of
type; men are experimenting with verse, attempting to revive old
forms and invent new, to restore the spirit of antiquity or to ride
abreast of the practical spirit of the time. Men like Mr. W.B. Yeats
and "A.E." sought to unite the ancient and, as they believed,
essential Irish spirit with the spirit which is manifested throughout
the stream of English lyrical poetry. In Mr. Yeats there was more
romanticism than he would care to admit, though the Elizabethan ideal
which he cherished and his own power of concentration did much to
subdue and chasten the insubordinate, vaguely aspiring spirit which in
lesser Celtic poets turns to froth, with no undercurrent of human
truth to give significance to its flaky beauty. Fiona Macleod is the
classic