We are not surprised to learn further that
'I rest my body on your grass, And let my brain repose in you.'
All that remains to be said is that Mr Monro is fond of dogs ('Can you smell the rose?' he says to Dog: 'ah, no!') and inclined to fish--both of which are Georgian inclinations.
Then there is Mr Drinkwater with the enthusiasm of the just man for moonlit apples--'moon-washed apples of wonder'--and the righteous man's sense of robust rhythm in this chorus from 'Lincoln':--
'You who know the tenderness Of old men at eve-tide, Coming from the hedgerows, Coming from the plough, And the wandering caress Of winds upon the woodside, When the crying yaffle goes Underneath the bough.'
Mr Drinkwater, though he cannot write good doggerel, is a very good man. In this poem he refers to the Sermon on the Mount as 'the words of light From the mountain-way.'
Mr Squire, who is an infinitely more able writer, would make an excellent subject for a critical investigation into false simplicity. He would repay a very close analysis, for he may deceive the elect in the same way as, we suppose, he deceives himself. His poem 'Rivers' seems to us a very curious example of the _faux bon_. Not only is the idea derivative, but the rhythmical treatment also. Here is Mr de la Mare:--
'Sweet is the music of Arabia In my heart, when out of dreams I still in the thin clear murk of dawn Descry her gliding streams; Hear her strange lutes on the green banks Ring loud with the grief and delight Of the dim-silked, dark-haired musicians In the brooding silence of night. They haunt me--her lutes and her forests; No beauty on earth I see But shadowed with that dream recalls Her loveliness to me: Still eyes look coldly upon me, Cold voices whisper and say-- "He is crazed with the spell of far Arabia, They have stolen his wits away."'
'For whatever stream I stand by, And whatever river I dream of, There is something still in the back of my mind From very far away; There is something I saw and see not, A country full of rivers That stirs in my heart and speaks to me More sure, more dear than they.
'And always I ask and wonder (Though often I do not know it) Why does this water not smell like water?...'
To leave the question of reminiscence aside, how the delicate vision of Mr de la Mare has been coarsened, how commonplace his exquisite technique has become in the hands of even a first-rate ability! It remains to be added that Mr Squire is an amateur of nature,--