The poetry of D. H. Lawrence (born 1885) erupts from the terrible twenties. In spite of his school experience, he has never sent his mind to school; he hates discipline. He has an undeniable literary gift, which has met--as it ought to--with glad recognition. He has strength, he has fervour, he has passion. But while his strength is sometimes the happy and graceful play of rippling muscles, it is often contortion. If Mr. De La Mare may seem too delicate, too restrained, Mr. Lawrence cares comparatively little for delicacy; and the word restraint is not in his bright lexicon. In other words, he is aggressively "modern." He is one of the most skilful manipulators of free verse--he can drive four horses abreast, and somehow or other reach the goal. He sees his own turbulent heart reflected stormily in every natural spectacle. He observes flowers in an anti-Wordsworthian way. He mentions with appreciation roses, lilies, snapdragons, but to him they are all passion-flowers. And yet--if he only knew it--his finest work is in a subdued mood. He is a master of colouring--and I like his quieter work as a painter better than his feverish, hectic cries of desire. Despite his dialect poems, he is more successful at description than at drama. I imagine Miss Harriet Monroe may think so too; it seems to me she has done well in selecting his verses, to give three out of the five from his colour-pieces, of which perhaps the best is SERVICE OF ALL THE DEAD Between the avenue of cypresses, All in their scarlet capes and surplices Of linen, go the chaunting choristers, The priests in gold and black, the villagers. And all along the path to the cemetery The round dark heads of men crowd silently; And black-scarfed faces of women-folk wistfully Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery. And at the foot of a grave a father stands With sunken head and forgotten, folded hands; And at the foot of a grave a mother kneels With pale shut face, nor neither hears nor feels. The coming of the chaunting choristers Between the avenue of cypresses, The silence of the many villagers, The candle-flames beside the surplices. (Remember the English pronunciation of "cemetery" is not the common American one.) He is surely better as a looker-on at life than when he tries to present the surging passions of an actor-in-chief. Then his art is full of sound and fury, and instead of being thrilled, we are, as Stevenson said of Whitman's poorer poems, somewhat indecorously amused. All poets, I suppose, are thrilled by their own work; they read it to themselves with shudders of rapture; but it is only when this _frisson_ is felt by others than blood-relatives that they may feel some reasonable assurance of success. The London _Times_ quite properly refuses to surrender to lines like these: