The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1918-10-14
,omes as "the ambassador of the

COmts US inc huDhsshuOr Oh tne
dead.r
1t is not necessary to borrow glory
from the splendid circumstance Of
their death in order to claim a spe-
cial Significance for the names that
Mr.. NIcHoL will speak. They had
already--before the storm broke in
Europe-begun to assume, as a group,
a definite place in the history of Eng
fish poetry, and as individuals to
acquire something more than a col
loquial fame. The expression "the
young Elizabethans" had begun to
be heard wherever English poetry
was discussed. The names Of Nor
LEY and BROOKE and the others were
known on both sides of the Atlantic
some time before the war came to
give them that peculiar and shining
Immortality that attaches to the COM
bination Of poetry, youth and death
In battle.
Contemporary literary estimates
are VIGOROUSLY erring. We are so
J apt to overpraise or undervaluc. Con-
GREvE, with his pretty grace and
shallow wit, was acclaimed In his
day the greatest poet since SHAKE
spEARE- ITO most of us to-day he is
something less than a name. Even
Pore and PARNELL, "cold and cor
rect are read now with scant pleas
ure, IL they are read ut all; yet they
wore the laurel In their time. They
had overthrown the Elizabethans and
usurped the throne. The king was
dead; long live the kingI Their
kind of poetry was the only kind.
BYRON, SHELLEY, KEATS, on the other
hand, were smart alexis and literary
coxcombe, queer for the sake Of queer
ness, and deserving Of no attention
from persons with correct" critical
standards.
So the pendulum of English poetry
swings back and forth between the
classical and the romantic, the cor
rect and the free, the rhetorical and
the simple, heartfelt utterance. 1t Is
to the latter group that We care to
turn in each case. To-day we pass
PORE by and go back beyond him to
the Elizabethans, to HERRIcK and
CAREw and WILLIAM BROWNE of Tav-
istock; or we turn back to BYRON
and KEATS, passing over the harden
Ing forms Of their immediate sue
cessors In art.
These men of whom Mr.. NIcHoL
will speak fall at that end of the arc
where our preference has been accus-
toned to. lie. The name which, as a
group, they were beginning TO &C
quire Is neither inapt nor extrava-
CANT Young Elizabethans they were
in directness and simplicity of
speech, in the singing quality Of their
verse, in their objective concepts, In
their response to sensation, and
this, In the circumstances, the most
tragic Of all-their love Of English
field and sky and sea. In all these
things they were more reminiscent
Of the roistering and talented sing
ers Of the Mermaid Inn than have
been any Of the intermediate schools.
Like them, too, in the fine youthful
ness that runs everywhere barefoot
through their poetry. And like them
! again in that they burst suddenly
and generously into song at period
nearly sterile and silent. Very much
the same as In the sixteenth century,
1t were as though Il warm wind had
blown over England and the country
side awoke with thousand cholrs.
Their love of English town and
field and sky cannot have failed to
strike the attention Of any who
have read these poets of the last dec
ade. Another book of "Place Names
in English Poetry" could be derived
from their volumes. Their use of
English towns and streets and coun-
trysides threatened at first to make
their poetry colloquial; 1t ended by
making England universal. 1t was
not the exalting of England the ma
ton; 1t was a lovers praise of Eng
land the country OF blue skies, of
sunny downs and "the fallow on the
hill not yet brought In"
In the midst of all this-the youth
Of 1t, the beauty of It, the exultation
and the music-came the blast Of
war. the blight and the wreckage
and silence. "They had been music
for the world"-and now they are
still. We shall never know the meas
ure of the loss. Most of them were
yet young when the England that
they loved called for a sterner thing
than song. Some of them remain
Mr.. NIcHoL, several times wounded |;
WILFRED GIBSON, now In service {;
JOHN DRISKwATER and others. Out
Of the wreckage something may be
saved. But when 1t comes to casting
up the cost of the war 30 England
and the world the names that Mr..
NIcHoL will recall will go far toward
reminding US that the total Is beyond
possibility of estimate.
From the late ednsoMs 0, TIE Sun Of octoberl3