Decidedly a poet must have both courage and faith to hold himself so steadily aloof from the competition of the market-place; to work with such easy cheerfulness in his quiet corner; to remain so manifestly unaffected by the swift currents of contemporary verse. For fifteen years he has gone on producing his own favourite kind of poetry, dealing with children, with flowers, with autumn and winter, with ghosts of memory, with figures in literature, and has finally obtained a respectable audience without once raising his voice. He has written surprisingly little love poetry; the notes of passion, as we are accustomed to hear them, seldom sound from his lute; nor do we hear the agonizing cries of doubt, remorse, or despair. There is nothing turbulent and nothing truculent; he has made no contribution to the literature of revolt. Yet many of his poems make an irresistible appeal to our more reflective moods; and once or twice, his fancy, always winsome and wistful, rises to a height of pure imagination, as in _The Listeners_--which I find myself returning to muse over again and again. His studies of humanity--both from observation and from books--are descriptive rather than dramatic. I do not know a contemporary poet whose published works contain so few quotation marks. The dramatic monologue, which Emerson back in the 'forties prophesied would be the highest class of poetry in the immediate future (which prophecy was fulfilled), does not interest Mr. De La Mare; maybe he feels that it has been done so well that he prefers to let it alone. His remarkable thirteen poems dealing with Shakespearean characters--where he attempts with considerable success to pluck out the heart of the mystery--are all descriptive. Perhaps the most original and beautiful of these is MERCUTIO Along an avenue of almond-trees Came three girls chattering of their sweethearts three. And lo! Mercutio, with Byronic ease, Out of his philosophic eye cast all A mere flow'r'd twig of thought, whereat ... Three hearts fell still as when an air dies out And Venus falters lonely o'er the sea. But when within the further mist of bloom His step and form were hid, the smooth child Ann Said, "La, and what eyes he had!" and Lucy said, "How sad a gentleman!" and Katharine, "I wonder, now, what mischief he was at." And these three also April hid away, Leaving the spring faint with Mercutio. There are immense tracts of Shakespeare which Walter De La Mare never could even have remotely imitated; but I know of no poet today who could approach the wonderful Queen Mab speech more successfully than he. The same method of interpretative description that he employs in dealing with Shakespearean characters he uses repeatedly in making portraits from life. One of the most vivid and delightful of these is OLD SUSAN