death was a beautiful and good thing, and they prayed most fervently that they might again have the privilege of dying in the old way, of putting the bodies of their dead into beautiful tombs, of being able to visit the graves of their beloved from time to time. So God took pity on them and gave them back death, and the poet sings his gratitude thus: And I cried, "O unseen Sender of Corruption, I bless thee for the wonder of Thy mercy, Which softeneth the mystery and the parting. "I bless Thee for the change and for the comfort, The bloomless face, shut eyes, and waxen fingers,-- For Sleeping, and for Silence, and Corruption." This idea is worth something, if only as a vivid teaching of the necessity of things as they are. The two fantasies thus commented upon are the most original things in the range of this mystical book. I could not recommend any further reading or study of the poet, except perhaps of his "Vision of the Man Accurst." But even this has not the true stamp of originality; and only the "Ballad of Judas Iscariot" is certain not to be soon forgotten. CHAPTER IX ROBERT BRIDGES This poet, one of the greatest of the English minor poets of our time, and represented in literature by a very considerable bulk of work, happens to be one of the least known. He was never popular; and even to-day, when recognition is coming to him slowly, almost as slowly as it came to George Meredith, he is chiefly read by the cultivated classes. There are several reasons for this. One is that he is altogether an old-fashioned poet, writing with the feeling of the eighteenth rather than of the nineteenth century, so that persons in search of novelty are not likely to look at him. Then again he is not a thinker, except at the rarest moments, not touched at all by the scientific ideas of the nineteenth century. For that reason a great many people, accustomed to look for philosophy in poetry, do not care about his verse. I must confess that I myself should not have read him, had it not been for a beautiful criticism of his work published some five years ago. That tempted me to study him, with pleasant results. But I then found a third reason for his unpopularity--want of passion. When everything else is missing that attracts intellectual attention to a poet, everything strange, novel, and philosophical, he may still become popular if he has strong emotion, deep feeling. But Robert Bridges has neither. He is somewhat cool, even when he is not cold; his colours are never strong, though they are always natural; and there is something faint about his music that makes you think of the music of insects, of night crickets or locusts. You may therefore begin to wonder that I should speak about him at all. If a poet has no philosophy, no originality, and no passion, what can there be in him? Well, a great deal. It is not necessary to be original in order to be a poet; it is only necessary to say old things somewhat better than