1918] on The Romantic Revival 267 



singer should be a seer ; tlie people need a guide and a voice. May 

 not his art be a voice and guide to them ? Does he live only to 

 sing a new song in the people's ears ? He may have but a small 

 provision, but if the people are hungering, he will spread forth his 

 scant fare in the wilderness. It will be something if he can appease 

 their hunger. It will be reward enough if he can give a new song 

 to the new generation. 



•' And here the singer, for his art 

 Not all iu vain may plead, 

 The song that stirs a nation's heart 

 Is in itself a deed." 



I do not mean that thoughts such as these rose consciously in the 

 minds of the singers of the new poetry ; but I do mean that the 

 movements of the age made the idea of the people clearer, and more 

 living and more operative to those whose minds were open to the 

 meaning of the lightning and thunderings and voices which accom- 

 panied the close of the 18th Century. 



The literary movement was a popular movement. It was also a 

 revolt against conventionality. It was a plea for liberty. 



Any custom may after a time become a tyranny ; and this not 

 because it is bad, but because, as Tennyson reminds us, even a good 

 custom may corrupt the world. The cry for change may be a puerile 

 or a manly cry. It may be the cry of one who is heedless and 

 inattentive, and who is as a child wanting a new plaything because it 

 has not the energy or inteUigence to get amusement or interest out 

 of the old. On the other hand, it may be the cry of the builder who 

 is asking straw to make his bricks. Life shows itself to be life by 

 its resolute selection of the form in which it can best express itself. 

 Life governs form far more than form governs life. Wherever there 

 is true life there will be a certain majestic independence and deter- 

 mination to live its own life. And here an 18th Century worthy 

 will support me. " Xo man," said Dr. Johnson, " ever was great by 

 imitation." 



The fault of the old generation had not been, as some have said, 

 that they were hopelessly prosaic. I cannot agree that there is any 

 titness in calling Dryden or Pope "prose writers." You may assign 

 them any rank you please, high or low, in the Pantheon, but you 

 cannot turn them out of doors and place them in company with 

 Miss Burney and Miss Edge worth. If Pope is not a poet, who is ? 

 is a fair question, if we understand it rightly. Pope does not attain 

 to the rank of those who sit in the snow-crowned heights undisturbed 

 by the storm of criticism which rages round the lesser heights ; but 

 if we are to count every poet a prose writer who is prosy we shall 

 have few poets left. There are traces of prosaic wilderness enough 

 in Wordsworth as well as Pope, but as we cross them we can hear 

 the murmur of the burn, and we know that we shall before longf 



