And yet, when the non-lover has finally arrived at the peroration of his defense, we may remain unshaken in our conviction that from the _Song of Solomon_ to the _Love Songs of Sara Teasdale_, the history of poetry constitutes an almost unbroken hymn to the power of love, "the poet, and the source of poetry in others," [Footnote: _The Symposium_ of Plato, Sec. 196.] as Agathon characterized him at the banquet in Love's honour. Within the field of our especial inquiry, the last century, we may rest assured that there is no true poet whose work, rightly interpreted, is out of tune with this general acclaim. Even Browning and Oscar Wilde are to be saved, although, it may be, only as by fire. The influence of love upon poetry, which we are assuming with such _a priori_ certainty, is effected in various ways. The most obvious, of course, is by affording new subject matter. The confidence of Shakespeare, How can my muse want subject to invent While thou dost breathe, that pourest into my verse Thine own sweet argument? is at least as characteristic of the nineteenth as of the sixteenth century. The depletion of our lyric poetry, if everything relating to the singer's love affairs were omitted, is appalling even to contemplate. Yet, if this were the extent of love's influence upon poetry, one would have to class it, in kind if not in degree, with any number of other personal experiences that have thrilled the poet to composition. The scope of love's influence is widened when one reflects upon its efficacy as a prize held up before the poet, spurring him on to express himself. In this aspect poetry is often a form of spiritual display comparable to the gay plumage upon the birds at mating season. In the case of women poets, verse often affords an essentially refined and lady-like manner of expressing one's sentiments toward a possible suitor. The convention so charmingly expressed in William Morris' lines, _Rhyme Slayeth Shame_, seems to be especially grateful to them. At times the ruse fails, as a writer has recently admitted: All sing it now, all praise its artless art, But ne'er the one for whom the song was made, [Footnote: Edith Thomas, _Vos non Nobis_.] but perhaps the worth of the poetry is not affected by the stubbornness of its recipient. Sara Teasdale very delicately names her anthology of love poems by women, _The Answering Voice_, but half the poems reveal the singer speaking first, while a number of them show her expressing an open-minded attitude toward any possible applicant for her hand among her readers. But it is not merely for its efficacy as a matrimonial agency that poets are indebted to love.