Perhaps the best noun that describes Flecker's verse is _brightness_. He had a consumptive's longing for sunshine, and his sojourns on the Mediterranean shores illuminate his pages. The following poem is decidedly characteristic: IN PHAEACIA Had I that haze of streaming blue, That sea below, the summer faced, I'd work and weave a dress for you And kneel to clasp it round your waist, And broider with those burning bright Threads of the Sun across the sea, And bind it with the silver light That wavers in the olive tree. Had I the gold that like a river Pours through our garden, eve by eve, Our garden that goes on for ever Out of the world, as we believe; Had I that glory on the vine, That splendour soft on tower and town, I'd forge a crown of that sunshine, And break before your feet the crown. Through the great pinewood I have been An hour before the lustre dies, Nor have such forest-colours seen As those that glimmer in your eyes. Ah, misty woodland, down whose deep And twilight paths I love to stroll To meadows quieter than sleep And pools more secret than the soul! Could I but steal that awful throne Ablaze with dreams and songs and stars Where sits Night, a man of stone, On the frozen mountain spars I'd cast him down, for he is old, And set my Lady there to rule, Gowned with silver, crowned with gold, And in her eyes the forest pool. It seems to me improbable that Flecker will be forgotten; he was a real poet. But a remark made of Tennyson is still more applicable to Flecker. "He was an artist before he was a poet." Even as a small boy, he had astonishing facility, but naturally wrote little worth preserval. The _Collected Poems_ show an extraordinary command of his instrument. He had the orthodox virtues of the orthodox poet--rime and rhythm, cunning in words, skill in nature-painting, imagination. The richness of his colouring and the loveliness of his melodies make his verses a delight to the senses. His mind was plentifully stored with classical authors, and he saw nature alive with old gods and fairies. In one of his most charming poems, _Oak and Olive_, he declares, When I go down the Gloucester lanes My friends are deaf and blind: Fast as they turn their foolish eyes The Maenads leap behind, And when I hear the fire-winged feet, They only hear the wind. Have I not chased the fluting Pan, Through Cranham's sober trees? Have I not sat on Painswick Hill With a nymph upon my knees, And she as rosy as the dawn, And naked as the breeze?