I saw with open eyes Singing birds sweet Sold in the shops For the people to eat, Sold in the shops of Stupidity Street. I saw in vision The worm in the wheat, And in the shops nothing For people to eat; Nothing for sale in Stupidity Street. Analysis of that will discover an anatomy complete enough to those who enjoy that kind of dissection. There are bones of logic and organic heat sufficient of themselves for wonder how the thing can be done in so small a compass. And the strong simple words, which articulate the idea so exactly, confirm the impression of something rounded and complete; as though final expression had been reached and nothing remained behind. But as a fact there is much behind. One sees this perhaps a little more clearly in "The Mystery": He came and took me by the hand Up to a red rose tree, He kept His meaning to Himself But gave a rose to me. I did not pray Him to lay bare The mystery to me, Enough the rose was Heaven to smell, And His own face to see. Again the idea has been crystallized so cleanly out of the poetic matrix that one sees at first only its sharp, bright outline. Perhaps to the analyst it would yield nothing more. But the simpler mind will surely feel, no matter how dimly, the presence of all the imaginings out of which it sprang, a small synthesis of the universe. Here we touch the main feature of this poet's gift--his power to visualize, to make almost tangible, a poetic conception. So consummate is this power that it dominates other qualities and might almost cheat us into thinking that they did not exist. Thus we might not suspect this transparent verse of reflective depths; and of course, it is not intellectual poetry, specifically so-called. Yet reflection is implied everywhere; and occasionally it is a pure abstraction which gets itself embodied. The poem called "Time" illustrates this. In its opening line--"Time, you old Gipsy-man"--the idea swings into life in a figure which gains energy with every line. One positively sees this restless old man who has driven his caravan from end to end of the world and who cannot be persuaded to stay for bribe or entreaty. And it would be possible quite to forget the underlying thought did not the gravity of it peep between the incisive strokes of the third stanza. Last week in Babylon, Last night in Rome, Morning, and in the crush Under Paul's dome; Under Paul's dial You tighten your rein-- Only a moment, And off once again; Off to some city Now blind in the womb, Off to another Ere that's in the tomb. So it is too with this poet's imagination. It deals perpetually with concrete imagery--as for instance when it pictures Eve: Picking a dish of sweet Berries and plums to eat, or presents her, when the serpent is softly calling her name, as