Simple, brave, resolute, manly, a little given to "robustiousness," Kingsley transfigured all these qualities by possessing the soul and the heart of a poet. He was not a very great poet, indeed, but a true poet--one of the very small band who are cut off, by a gulf that can never be passed, from mere writers of verse, however clever, educated, melodious, ingenious, amiable, and refined. He had the real spark of fire, the true note; though the spark might seldom break into flame, and the note was not always clear. Never let us confuse true poets with writers of verse, still less with writers of "poetic prose." Kingsley wrote a great deal of that-perhaps too much: his descriptions of scenes are not always as good as in Hereward's ride round the Fens, or when the tall, Spanish galleon staggers from the revenge of man to the vengeance of God, to her doom through the mist, to her rest in the sea. Perhaps only a poet could have written that prose; it is certain no writer of "poetic prose" could have written Kingsley's poems. His songs are his best things; they really are songs, not merely lyric poems. They have the merit of being truly popular, whether they are romantic, like "The Sands o' Dee," which actually reproduces the best qualities of the old ballad; or whether they are pathetic, like the "Doll's Song," in "Water Babies"; or whether they attack an abuse, as in the song of "The Merry Brown Hares"; or whether they soar higher, as in "Deep, deep Love, within thine own abyss abiding"; or whether they are mere noble nonsense, as in "Lorraine Loree":-- "She mastered young Vindictive; oh, the gallant lass was she, And kept him straight and won the race, as near as near could be; But he killed her at the brook against a pollard willow tree; Oh, he killed her at the brook, the brute, for all the world to see, And no one but the baby cried for poor Lorraine Loree." The truth about Charles Kingsley seems to be that he rather made a brave and cheery noise in this night-battle of modern life, than that he directed any movement of forces. He kept cheering, as it were, and waving his sword with a contagious enthusiasm. Being a poet, and a man both of heart and of sentiment, he was equally attached to the best things of the old world and to the best of the new world, as far as one can forecast what it is to be. He loved the stately homes of England, the ancient graduated order of society, the sports of the past, the military triumphs, the patriotic glories. But he was also on the side of the poor: as "Parson Lot" he attempted to be a Christian Socialist.