6 DECEMBER 1940, Page 24

LIKE so many semi-official anthologies of the not—as yet— quite

respectable modern verse, this one represents less personal taste or critical judgement than a kind of po-tical com- promise. If Miss Jones believes that Mr. Laurence Housman's verses in praise of nightingales at Battersea are " poetry," how can she also believe in the merits of Mr. Dylan Thomas? The effect of all the original poets in this collection is carefully smoothed down to the surface of the dimmest Bridges. It is a pity that the Oxford University Press should lend its academic authortty to this belittlement of the poetry of Thomas Hardy, Edward Thomas, and Wilfred Owen, as well as of Mr. De la Mare and Mr. Auden among living poets.