Testimony of the Mighty One
Poetry .and the Poets ; Essays on the Art of Poetry, by Six Great English Poets. Edited with an Introduction by R. Brimley Johnson. (Faber and Gwyer. 7s. 6d.) THOUGH this book consists only of reprints from the critical work of some of our greatest poets, yet it is profoundly important. It comes, as a poets' Testament, at a time when the sacred character of poetry is being tainted by a petty familiarity. On the one hand we have fulfilled the prophecy of Matthew Arnold, in which he foretold the oncoming of a vast tide of commercial literature of emotion and sensation which would have to cater for the quite undiscriminating taste of a public that has mastered no secrets but those of the horn-book. This great mass of people knows nothing and cares nothing about poetry. To it, poetry has no meaning, either as music, history, religion, or pure thought ; all of which divine faculties are inherent in poetry.
These few essays, so aptly gathered, will stir our poetic conscience to the full. Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley —all represented here—have between them expressed the crowning dignity of poetry, and laid bare its full authority, Wordworth's " poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge ; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science," stands with Shelley's " poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man," as the boldest and highest claim for the true nature of poetry. He who has mastered the finer significance of Wordsworth's Prefaces and Shelley's Defence knows what a portentous and vivid reality poetry is ; what part it plays in our religion, ethics, and politics ; and where it enters our homes, to sit at our tables as the unbidden guest, the very Presence whose coming singles us out for honour from among the rest of creation. Such is the value of this book. It not only reminds us that " a poet is a man speaking to men," but it also re-creates, for our faith and hope, the real nature of
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