ve the case of some really
first-class poetry which has been struggling for recognition and yet
shows, so far, no sign of breaking through into the clear light of
lasting love and remembrance, look at the poems of James Elroy
Flecker.

Generally speaking, one law is plain: that it is not until the poet
himself and all who knew him are dead, and his lines speak only with
the naked and impersonal appeal of ink, that his value to the race
as a permanent pleasure can be justly appraised.

There is one more point that perhaps is worth making. It is
significant of human experience that the race instinctively demands,
in most of the poetry that it cares to take along with it as
permanent baggage, a certain honourable sobriety of mood. Consider
Mr. Burton E. Stevenson's great "Home Book of Verse," that
magnificent anthology which may be taken as fairly indicative of
general taste in these matters. In nearly 4,000 pages of poetry only
three or four hundred are cynical or satirical in temper. Humanity
as a whole likes to make the best of a bad job: it grins somewhat
ruefully at the bitter and the sardonic; but when it is packing its
trunk for the next generation it finds most room for those poets who
have somehow contrived to find beauty and not mockery in the inner
sanctities of human life and passion. This thought comes to us on
reading Aldous Huxley's brilliant and hugely entertaining book of
poems called "Leda." There is no more brilliant young poet writing
to-day; his title poem is nothing less than extraordinary in pagan
and pictorial beauty, but as a whole the cynical and scoffish tone
of carnal drollery which gives the book its appeal to the humorously
inclined makes a very dubious sandal for a poet planning a
long-distance run. Please note that we are not taking sides in any
argument: we ourself admire Mr. Huxley's poems enormously; but we
are simply trying, clumsily, to state what seem to us some of the
conditions attaching to the permanence of beauty as arranged in
words.

It is not to be supposed that you have done your possible when you
have read a great poem once--or ten times. A great poem is like a
briar pipe--it darkens and mellows and sweetens with use. You fill
it with your own glowing associations and glosses, and the strong
juices seep through, staining and gilding the grain and fibre of the
words.

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BOOKS OF THE SEA

The National Marine League asks, What are the ten bes