e, that
it is bound to conquer a place in poetry. The air-machine, to quote _The
Campaign_ once more, "rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm." But
the poets are still shy of it. In French it has, as yet, inspired but
one good poem, the "Plus haut toujours!" of Jean Allard-Meeus, a hymn of
real aerial majesty. In English Major Maurice Baring's ode "In Memoriam:
A.H." is equally unique, and, in its complete diversity from
Allard-Meeus' rhapsody, suggests that the aeroplane has a wide field
before it in the realms of imaginative writing. Major Baring's subject
is the death of Auberon Herbert, Lord Lucas, who was killed on November
3rd, 1916. This distinguished young statesman and soldier had just been
promoted, after a career of prolonged gallantry in the air, and would
have flown no more, if he had returned in safety to our front on that
fatal day.

Major Baring has long been known as an excellent composer of sonnets and
other short pieces. But "In Memoriam: A.H." lifts him to a position
among our living poets to which he had hardly a pretension. In a long
irregular threnody or funeral ode, the great technical difficulty is to
support lyrical emotion throughout. No form of verse is more liable to
lapses of dignity, to dull and flagging passages. Even Dryden in _Anne
Killigrew_, even Coleridge in the _Departing Year_, have not been able
to avoid those languors. Many poets attempt to escape them by a use of
swollen and pompous language. I will not say that Major Baring has been
universally successful, where the success of the great masters is only
relative, but he has produced a poem of great beauty and originality,
which interprets an emotion and illustrates an incident the poignancy of
which could scarcely be exaggerated. I have no hesitation in asserting
that "A.H." is one of the few durable contributions to the literature of
the present war.

It is difficult to quote effectively from a poem which is constructed
with great care on a complicated plan, but a fragment of Major Baring's
elegy may lead readers to the original:--

"God, Who had made you valiant, strong and swift
And maimed you with a bullet long ago,
And cleft your riotous ardour with a rift,
And checked your youth's tumultuous overflow,
Gave back your youth to you,
And packed in moments rare and few
Achievements manifold
And happiness untold,
And bade you spring to Death as to a bride,
In manhood's ripenes