Anne Ridler's poetry is stylistically uncommon: she is a modern metaphysical poet. Often her subject matter--the bombing of London, electricity, working in the City--is solidly modern, as are her unobtrusive rhythms and her distrust of exact rhyme. She has also written and worked in the very midst of modern poetry: W.H. Auden was a poetic influence; her favorite poets include T.S. Eliot and the later William Butler Yeats; and she edited The Little Book of Modern Verse (1941) and the second edition of The Faber Book of Modern Verse (1951). At Faber and Faber, furthermore, she worked closely with T.S. Eliot, serving as his secretary and helping him to choose poetry both for the publishing house and for the Criterion. Yet her belief, her mind, and her poetic sensibility are also firmly rooted in the seventeenth-century metaphysical tradition. Like Herbert and Donne she is a believing Christian...