"I think that it indicates a real renascence of poetry," he replied. "I am sufficiently child-like and hopeful to find it very encouraging." "Do you think," I asked, "that the poetry that is written in America to-day is better than that written a generation ago?" "I should hardly venture to say that," said Mr. Robinson. "For one thing, we have no Emerson. Emerson is the greatest poet who ever wrote in America. Passages scattered here and there in his work surely are the greatest of American poetry. In fact, I think that there are lines and sentences in Emerson's poetry that are as great as anything anywhere." I asked Mr. Robinson whether he thought the modern English poets were doing better work than their American contemporaries. At first he was unwilling to express an opinion on this subject, repeating his statement that he mistrusted his own critical judgment. But he said: "Within his limits, I believe that A. E. Housman is the most authentic poet now writing in England. But, of course, his limits are very sharply drawn. I don't think that any one who knows anything about poetry will ever think of questioning the inspiration of _A Shropshire Lad_." "Would you make a similar comment on any other poetry of our time?" I asked. "Well," said Mr. Robinson, reflectively, "I think that no one will question the inspiration of some of Kipling's poems, of parts of John Masefield's _Dauber_, and some of the long lyrics of Alfred Noyes. But I do not think that either of these poets gives the impression of finality which A. E. Housman gives. But the way in which I have shifted my opinion about some of Rudyard Kipling's poems, and most of Swinburne's, makes me think that Wordsworth was very largely right in his attitude toward the judgment of youth. But where my opinions have shifted, I think now that I always had misgivings. I fancy that youth always has misgivings in regard to what is later to be modified or repudiated." Then I asked Mr. Robinson if he thought that the war had anything to do with the renascence of poetry. "I can't see any connection," he replied. "The only effect on poetry that the war has had, so far as I know, is to produce those five sonnets by Rupert Brooke. I can't see that it has caused any poetical event. And there's no use prophesying what the war will or will not do to poetry, because no one knows anything about it. The Civil War seems to have had little effect on poetry except to produce Julia Ward Howe's _Battle Hymn of the Republic_, Whitman's poems on the death of Lincoln, and Lowell's 'Ode.'" "Mr. Robinson," I said, "there has been much discussion recently about the rewards of poetry, and Miss Amy Lowell has said that no poet ought to be expected to make a living by writing. What do you think about it?"