or the lapidary splendour of Gray in his _Odes_. I should rather look,
at least in the immediate future, for a revival of the liquid ease of
Chaucer or the soft redundancies of _The Faerie Queene_. The remarkable
experiments of the Symbolists of twenty years ago, and their effect upon
the whole body of French verse, leads me to expect a continuous movement
in that direction.

It is difficult indeed to speak of the probable future of poetry without
introducing the word Symbolism, over which there has raged so much windy
warfare in the immediate past. I cannot help believing that the immense
importance of this idea is one of the principal--perhaps the greatest
discovery with regard to poetry which was made in the last generation.
Symbols, among the ancient Greeks, were, if I mistake not, the signs by
which the initiated worshippers of Ceres or Cybele recognised their
mysterious unison of heart. A symbol is an indication of an object, in
opposition to a direct description of the same; it arouses the idea of
it in the awakened soul; rings a bell, for we may almost put it so,
which at once rouses the spirit and reminds it of some special event or
imminent service. The importance of making this the foremost feature of
poetry is not new, although it may be said that we have only lately, and
only partially, become aware of its value. But, really, if you will
consider it, all that the Symbolists have been saying is involved in
Bacon's phrase that "poetry conforms the shows of things to the desires
of the soul, instead of subjecting the soul to external things." There
could never be presented a subject less calculated to be wound up with a
rhetorical flourish or to close in pompous affirmation than that which I
have so temerariously brought before you this afternoon. I hope that you
will not think that your time has been wasted while we have touched,
lightly and erratically, like birds on boughs, upon some of the probable
or possible features of the poetry of the future. Whatever you, or I, or
the wisest of professors, may predict on this theme of the unborn poets,
we may be certain that there will

"hover in their restless heads
One thought, one grace, one wonder, at the least,
Which into words no virtue"

of ours can "digest." I began with the rococo image of a Pegasus, poised
in the air, flashing and curvetting, petulantly refusing to alight on
any expected spot. Let me return to it in closing, that I may