Restormel, Lostwithiel, Dark woodland, dim water, dreaming town-- Down the vale of the Fowey, Each in her exile Musing the message-- Message illumined by love As a starlit sorrow-- Passed, as the shadow of Ruth From the land of the Moabite. So they came-- Valley-born, valley-nurtured-- Came to the tideway, The jetties, the anchorage, The salt wind piping, Snoring in equinox, By ships at anchor, By quays tormented, Storm-bitten streets; Came to the Haven Crying, "Ah, shelter us, The strayed ambassadors! Lost legation of love On a comfortless coast!" Nay, but a little sleep, A little folding Of petals to the lull Of quiet rainfalls,-- Here in my garden, In angle sheltered From north and east wind-- Softly shall recreate The courage of charity, Henceforth not to me only Breathing the message. Clean-breath'd Sirens! Henceforth the mariner, Here on the tideway Dragging, foul of keel, Long-strayed but fortunate, Out of the fogs, the vast Atlantic solitudes, Shall, by the hawser-pin Waiting the signal-- "Leave-go-anchor!" Scent the familiar Fragrance of home; So in a long breath Bless us unknowingly: Bless them, the violets, Bless me, the gardener, Bless thee, the giver. My business (I remind myself) behind the window is not to scribble verses: my business, or a part of it, is to criticise poetry, which involves reading poetry. But why should anyone read poetry in these days? Well, one answer is that nobody does. I look around my shelves and, brushing this answer aside as flippant, change the form of my question. Why do we read poetry? What do we find that it does for us? We take to it (I presume) some natural need, and it answers that need. But what is the need? And how does poetry answer it? Clearly it is not a need of knowledge, or of what we usually understand by knowledge. We do not go to a poem as we go to a work on Chemistry or Physics, to add to our knowledge of the world about us. For example, Keats' glorious lines to the Nightingale-- "Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird . . ." Are unchallengeable poetry; but they add nothing to our stock of information. Indeed, as Mr. Bridges pointed out the other day, the information they contain is mostly inaccurate or fanciful. Man is, as a matter of fact, quite as immortal as a nightingale in every sense but that of sameness. And as for: "Magic casements opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn," Science tells us that no such things exist in this or any other ascertained world. So, when Tennyson tells us that birds in the high Hall garden were crying, "Maud, Maud, Maud," or that: