It is interesting to compare the original Newfoundland Verse with what the author has been willing to reprint of it [in The Collected Poems of E. J. Pratt]. Always contemptuous of what he calls "O thouing", he has tried to cut away two things: the intrusion of the poet on his reader, and the detachment of the poet from his surroundings. He is already well aware that writing narrative poetry is no job for an egocentric poet. For narrative, the poet must have a story worth telling, and then get out of its way. (p. xiv)

[In Pratt's narratives there] is no attempt to pack in Higher Significance, no bluster about red-blooded heroes, no underlining of the irony, no comment on the tragedy. The poet knows that a good story cannot be pumped up by fine writing, and that a fable that is any good contains its own...