But, says Mr. Sharp, every one is far too literary; even Rossetti is too literary.  What we want is simplicity and directness of utterance; these should be the dominant characteristics of poetry.  Well, is that quite so certain?  Are simplicity and directness of utterance absolute essentials for poetry?  I think not.  They may be admirable for the drama, admirable for all those imitative forms of literature that claim to mirror life in its externals and its accidents, admirable for quiet narrative, admirable in their place; but their place is not everywhere.  Poetry has many modes of music; she does not blow through one pipe alone.  Directness of utterance is good, but so is the subtle recasting of thought into a new and delightful form.  Simplicity is good, but complexity, mystery, strangeness, symbolism, obscurity even, these have their value.  Indeed, properly speaking, there is no such thing as Style; there are merely styles, that is all.

One cannot help feeling also that everything that Mr. Sharp says in his preface was said at the beginning of the century by Wordsworth, only where Wordsworth called us back to nature, Mr. Sharp invites us to woo romance.  Romance, he tells us, is ‘in the air.’  A new romantic movement is imminent; ‘I anticipate,’ he says, ’that many of our poets, especially those of the youngest generation, will shortly turn towards the “ballad” as a poetic vehicle:  and that the next year or two will see much romantic poetry.’

The ballad!  Well, Mr. Andrew Lang, some months ago, signed the death-warrant of the ballade, and—­though I hope that in this respect Mr. Lang resembles the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, whose bloodthirsty orders were by general consent never carried into execution—­it must be admitted that the number of ballades given to us by some of our poets was, perhaps, a little excessive.  But the ballad?  Sir Patrick Spens, Clerk Saunders, Thomas the Rhymer—­are these to be our archetypes, our models, the sources of our inspiration?  They are certainly great imaginative poems.  In Chatterton’s Ballad of Charity, Coleridge’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, the La Belle Dame sans Merci of Keats, the Sister Helen of Rossetti, we can see what marvellous works of art the spirit of old romance may fashion.  But to preach a spirit is one thing, to propose a form is another.  It is true that Mr. Sharp warns the rising generation against imitation.  A ballad, he reminds them, does not necessarily denote a poem in quatrains and in antique language.  But his own poems, as I think will be seen later, are, in their way, warnings, and show the danger of suggesting any definite ‘poetic vehicle.’  And, further, are simplicity and directness of utterance really the dominant characteristics of these old imaginative ballads that Mr. Sharp so enthusiastically, and, in some particulars, so wisely praises?  It does not seem to me to be so.  We are always apt to think that the voices which sang at the dawn of poetry