near
perfection as it is often permitted mortals to approach, and it
lingers and echoes in the memory, it will not be forgotten. It has the
lilt of music, the chime of tune, the immemorial loveliness of song.
If the precise image, the desired emotional effect, the intellectual
content can be imparted in fettered verse, and, in addition, the
ancient loveliness can be retained, which the new verse lacks, can it
be possible that the world will long endure to read _vers libre_ when
_vers libre_ has done its work of bringing poets back to first-hand
reality for their subjects, relating the minstrels to the spirit of
their age? I cannot think so. I cannot but believe that any poetry
long to endure must be memorable, in the literal sense, and that is
just what the new poetry is not. Already, it seems to me from my
acquaintance with under-graduates and the just-graduated, _vers libre_
is a little the cult of the middle-aged, while youth, the future, is
swinging back gladly to the fetters of metre and rhyme, and probably
forgetful that the public which awaits their effort has been prepared
anew for poetry by this revolt from what was stale in tradition. I
believe that memorable poetry always has been, and always must be,
irradiated by

The light that never was on sea or land,

which is but another way of saying that it must have elevation and the
haunting mystery of beauty. The trouble is, of course, to catch this
authentic radiation, instead of some pale reflection from Patmore or
Rossetti. It was against the sham of second-hand mood and subject,
rather than the great truth of music and loveliness, that the new
poets broke into unmetrical protest. They have done a brave and needed
work,--but they have produced astonishingly little quotable poetry,
they have sung their way not far into the hearts of their listeners.
The lingering, lovely line is not for them. No, for still,

The soul of Adonais, like a star,
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are.

[Illustration]

_The Lies We Learn in Our Youth_

The world for a great many years has accepted the dictum of the poet,
that--

Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: It might have been.

Even those people who refused to accept the rhyme have accepted the
reason. But the fact is that the reason of this copybook couplet is as
bad as the rhyme. It would be much nearer the trut