I suppose the thing which is so satisfying in Mr. Aldington’s work is the intense feeling which underlies the astringent utterance. With all his stern, uncompromising technique (for Mr. Aldington is a remarkable technician) goes a passionate violence of feeling. The Imagists are constantly accused of being inhuman, mere intellectuals. How strange it is that the feeling which merely turns white and makes no movement should go unperceived, while hysterical screams and lamentations, over in a moment, pass for the outpourings of true passion! What we have outgrown on the stage still holds in poetry, it seems. Feeling there surely is in _Childhood_, printed in _Some Imagist Poets_. Yet, somehow, the poem is not as good as it ought to be. I suspect that Mr. Aldington has not yet quite mastered the technique of the long poem. Feeling is there, and we get the dullness of the little town perfectly, and the stale, salt smell of the harbour; and there are excellent descriptions—the public park, and the wonderful box in the attic—but the poem as a whole does not “get over.” Necessarily more discursive than the shorter poems, it has not enough command of the dramatic to succeed. Having taught himself for years to say things in the fewest possible words, the length of this poem has weakened the poet’s method. He must study the requirements of the longer poem a little more before he will be quite at home in it. Such as it is, _Childhood_ is interesting as showing the broadening of its author’s mind and interests. He no longer sees with the eyes of other centuries; he sees things about him, and as they are. Here is a perfectly modern picture: Round-Pond Water ruffled and speckled by galloping wind Which puffs and spurts it into tiny pashing breakers Dashed with lemon-yellow afternoon sunlight. The shining of the sun upon the water Is like a scattering of gold crocus-petals In a long wavering irregular flight. The water is cold to the eye As the wind to the cheek. In the budding chestnuts Whose sticky buds glimmer and are half-burst open The starlings make their clitter-clatter; And the blackbirds in the grass Are getting as fat as the pigeons. Too-hoo, this is brave; Even the cold wind is seeking a new mistress. How very well he has given the glinting of the sunlight! And that “Too-hoo, this is brave” is delightfully joyous and adolescent. Of all the poems which Mr. Aldington has written, _The Poplar_ is certainly the most generally liked. And I am not prepared to say that the public is not right. Perhaps it really is the best, I don’t know. I am very fond of it. The Poplar