Tired faces, eyes that have never seen the world, bodies that have never lived in air, lips that have never minted speech; they are the clipped and garbled blocking the highway. They swarm and eddy between the banks of glowing shops towards the red meat, the potherbs, the cheapjacks, or surge in before the swift rush of the charging teams; pitiful, ugly, mean, encumbering. Immortal? In a wood watching the shadow of a bird, leap from frond to frond of bracken, I am immortal, perhaps. But these? Their souls are naphtha lamps, guttering in an odour of carious teeth, and I die with them. Perhaps the last poem in Mr. Flint’s book will give the most complete exposition of his art and vision: The Star Bright Star of Life, Who shattered creeds at Bethlehem, And saw In the irradiance of your vision shining, Children and maidens, youths and men and women, Dancing barefoot among the grasses, singing, Dancing, Over the waving flowery meadows; So calmly watched the universe and men, And yet So fiery was the heart behind the light; The creeds have been re-made by men Who followed as you walked abroad, And gathered up their shattered shards; Then with a wax of sticky zeal, Each little piece unto its fellow joined; But over the meadows comes the wind Remembering your voice: _O my love,_ _O my golden-haired, my golden-hearted,_ _I will sing this song to you of Him,_ _This golden afternoon._ _This song of you;_ _For where love is, is He,_ _Whose name has echoed in the halls of Time,_ _Who caught the wise eternal music, ay,_ _And passed it on—_ _For men to sing it since_ _In false and shifting keys—_ _Who hears it now?_ But the hearts of those who have heard it rightly, Grew great; And behind the walls and barriers of the world, Their voices have gone up in sweetness Unheeded, Yet imminent in the wings and flight of change; Comes there a time when men shall shout it, And say to Life: You have the strength of the seas, And the glory of the vine; You shall have the wisdom of the hills, The daring of the eagle’s wings, The yearning of the swallow’s quest. And, in the mighty organ of the world, Great men shall be as pipes and nations stops To harmonize your Song.