I will not adduce poets of admitted eminence--Mr. Watson, for instance, or Mr. Yeats--to prove my case. I am content to go to a young poet who has his spurs to win, and will ask you to consider this little poem, and especially its final stanza. He calls it-- A CHARGE If thou hast squander'd years to grave a gem Commissioned by thy absent Lord, and while 'Tis incomplete, Others would bribe thy needy skill to them-- Dismiss them to the street! Should'st thou at last discover Beauty's grove, At last be panting on the fragrant verge, But in the track, Drunk with divine possession, thou meet Love-- Turn, at her bidding, back. When round thy ship in tempest Hell appears, And every spectre mutters up more dire To snatch control And loose to madness thy deep-kennell'd Fears,-- Then to the helm, O Soul! Last, if upon the cold, green-mantling sea Thou cling, alone with Truth, to the last spar, Both castaway, And one must perish--let it not be he Whom thou art sworn to obey. The author of these lines is a Mr. Herbert Trench, who (as I say) has his spurs to win. Yet I defy you to read them without recognising a note of high seriousness which is common to our great poets and utterly foreign to our modern bards of empire. The man, you will perceive, dares to talk quite boldly about the human soul. Now you will search long in our Jingo bards for any recognition of the human soul: the very word is unpopular. And as men of eminence write, so lesser wits imitate. A while ago I picked up a popular magazine, and happened on these verses--fluently written and, beyond a doubt, honestly meant. They are in praise of King Henry VIII.:-- King Harry played at tennis, and he threw the dice a-main, And did all things that seemed to him for his own and England's gain; He would not be talked to lightly, he would not be checked or chid; And he got what things he dreamed to get, and did-- what things he did. When Harry played at tennis it was well for this our Isle-- He cocked his nose at Interdicts; he 'stablished us the while-- He was lustful; he was vengeful; he was hot and hard and proud; But he set his England fairly in the sight of all the crowd. So Harry played at tennis, and we perfected the game Which astonished swaggering Spaniards when the fat Armada came. And possession did he give us of our souls in sturdiness; And he gave us peace from priesthood: and he gave us English Bess! When Harry played at tennis we began to know this thing-- That a mighty people prospers in a mighty-minded king. We boasted not our righteousness--we took on us our sin, For Bluff Hal was just an Englishman who played the game to win.