ON ENGLISH POETRY _POEMS BY ROBERT GRAVES_ FAIRIES AND FUSILEERS [1918] COUNTRY SETTLEMENT [1920] THE PIER-GLASS [1921] ON ENGLISH POETRY _Being an Irregular Approach to the Psychology of This Art, from Evidence Mainly Subjective_ BY ROBERT GRAVES [Illustration: colophon] NEW YORK ALFRED·A·KNOPF MCMXXII COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. _Published, May, 1922_ _Set up and printed by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N. Y. Paper furnished by Henry Lindenmeyr & Sons, New York, N. Y. Bound by the H. Wolff Estate, New York, N. Y._ MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA _To T. E. Lawrence of Arabia and All Soul’s College, Oxford, and to W. H. R. Rivers of the Solomon Islands and St. John’s College, Cambridge, my gratitude for valuable critical help, and the dedication of this book._ ... Also of the Mustarde Tarte: Suche problemis to paynt, it longyth to his arte. JOHN SKELTON. Poetry subdues to union under its light yoke all irreconcilable things. P. B. SHELLEY. NOTE The greater part of this book will appear controversial, but any critic who expects me to argue on what I have written, is begged kindly to excuse me; my garrison is withdrawn without a shot fired and his artillery may blow the fortress to pieces at leisure. These notebook reflections are only offered as being based on the rules which regulate my own work at the moment, for many of which I claim no universal application and have promised no lasting regard. They have been suggested from time to time mostly by particular problems in the writing of my last two volumes of poetry. Hesitating to formulate at present a comprehensive water-tight philosophy of poetry, I have dispensed with a continuous argument, and so the sections either stand independently or are intended to get their force by suggestive neighbourliness rather than by logical catenation. The names of the glass houses in which my name as an authority on poetry lodges at present, are to be found on a back page.