SOURCE: “The Poems of Arthur Christopher Benson.” Nation 88 (11 March 1909): 256.

In the following review, the critic praises Benson as a minor poet whose work “just misses greatness.”

From his six books of verse, ranging in date from 1892 to 1905, Mr. Benson has selected enough for a single comfortable volume [The Poems of Arthur Christopher Benson.] He himself, we presume, would not disdain the title of minor poet, if that phrase were spoken with a friendly smile. His work is minor in the better sense that it is unpretentious, and that it is replete with conscious reminiscences. Indeed, it might almost be sufficiently characterized by calling it a mixture of Tennyson and Matthew Arnold. This derivative quality is at times annoying, especially in the lyrical poems of nature, of which there are somewhat too many in the volume. Here and there, no doubt, a line or a passage of natural description...