24 JANUARY 1920, Page 14

POETRY.

THE PERSONAL TOUCH.

A CUNNING man Tom Fool must be to-day For friends who find his poems in a book

To swear : " Tom Fool wrote that; I know his way; Unsigned, yet eyed all over with Tom's look;

See here, it's pure Tom Fool, I'm not mistook;

Fine simple verses, too; now, who's to say How Tom has charmed these lame old words to obey His shepherd voice and flock beneath his crook ? "

Instead we sigh : "Heaven knows who wrote that stuff But he's been reading Swinburne "; or " That man Is one, I can't say which, of the Sitwell school "; Or "Here's a Georgian made to Marsh's plan"; Or " She's some Oxford poetess, sure enough "; But seldom "There, for a ducat, writes Tow FooL."