SOURCE: "William Barnes," in Two Cheers for Democracy, Edward Arnold and Co., 1951, pp. 209-12.

In the following essay, originally composed in 1939, Forster praises Barnes's gentle and skillful poetry.

It is surprising that William Barnes has not been more widely worshipped. Perhaps there was a touch of pride in his gentleness, which led him to conceal himself from notoriety beneath the veil of the Dorset dialect. The veil is slight: anyone can lift it after half an hour's reading. Yet it seems to have served his purpose, and to have confined him to the audience whom he loved. He should have been a popular poet, for he writes of matters which move everyone and in a way which everyone can understand. There is no mysticism in him beyond the trust that we shall, through the goodness of God, be reunited to the dead whom we have loved. There is...